Magnetic monopole - domain wall collisions

Abstract

Interactions of different types of topological defects can play an important role in the aftermath of a phase transition. We study interactions of fundamental magnetic monopoles and stable domain walls in a Grand Unified theory in which $SU(5)\times Z_2$ symmetry is spontaneously broken to $SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)/Z_6$. We find that there are only two distinct outcomes depending on the relative orientation of the monopole and the wall in internal space. In one case, the monopole passes through the wall, while in the other it unwinds on hitting the wall.

8 pages, 7 figures; new title and minor changes; matches the version accepted to Phys Rev D

References in corpus (1)

• Domain walls and fermion scattering in Grand Unified models

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Dynamics of Confined Monopoles and Similarities with Confined Quarks
• On the cosmological abundance of magnetic monopoles