Stability of domain wall network with initial inflationary fluctuations, and its implications for cosmic birefringence

Abstract

We study the formation and evolution of domain walls with initial inflationary fluctuations by numerical lattice calculations that, for the first time, correctly take into account correlations on superhorizon scales. We find that, contrary to the widely-held claim {over the past few tens of years}, the domain wall network exhibits remarkable stability even when the initial distribution is largely biased toward one of the minima. This is due to the fact that the domain wall network retains information about initial conditions on superhorizon scales, and that the scaling solution is not a local attractor in this sense. Our finding immediately implies that such domain walls will have a significant impact on cosmology, including the production of gravitational waves, baryogenesis, and dark matter from domain walls. Applying this result to the axion-like particle domain wall, we show that it not only explains the isotropic cosmic birefringence suggested by the recent analysis, but also predicts anisotropic cosmic birefringence that is nearly scale-invariant on large scales and can be probed by future CMB observations.

v2: 8pages, 13figures, the version submitted to journal

References in corpus (7)

• New Extraction of the Cosmic Birefringence from the Planck 2018 Polarization Data
• Cosmic Birefringence from Planck Data Release 4
• Looking at the NANOGrav Signal Through the Anthropic Window of Axion-Like Particles
• Future CMB constraints on cosmic birefringence and implications for fundamental physics
• Cosmic Birefringence Triggered by Dark Matter Domination
• Effects of Biases in Domain Wall Network Evolution
• Stability of domain walls in models with asymmetric potentials

Cited by in corpus (25)

• Ruling out light axions: the writing is on the wall
• Probing Axions through Tomography of Anisotropic Cosmic Birefringence
• Cosmic birefringence tomography with polarized Sunyaev Zel'dovich effect
• The QCD Axion: A Unique Player in the Axiverse with Mixings
• Can we explain cosmic birefringence without a new light field beyond Standard Model?
• Induced Domain Walls of QCD Axion, and Gravitational Waves
• A New Solution for the Observed Isotropic Cosmic Birefringence Angle and its Implications for the Anisotropic Counterpart through a Boltzmann Approach
• Parity-violating scalar trispectrum from a rolling axion during inflation
• The Flavor of QCD Axion Dark Matter
• Isotropic cosmic birefringence from string axion domain walls without cosmic strings, and DESI results
• The Spectrum of Gravitational Waves from Annihilating Domain Walls
• Exact CMB B-mode power spectrum from anisotropic cosmic birefringence
• Cosmic Birefringence from Neutrino and Dark Matter Asymmetries
• Revisiting the Minimal Nelson-Barr Model
• Tomographic constraint on anisotropic cosmic birefringence
• Cosmic Birefringence from CP-Violating Axion Interactions
• Isotropic cosmic birefringence from an oscillating axion-like field
• Meso-inflationary Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking with non-minimal coupling
• Resolving the QCD Axion Domain Wall Problem with a Light Axion
• Conversations in the dark: cross-correlating birefringence and LSS to constrain axions
• Improving Cosmic Birefringence Constraints via Delensing
• Non-Scaling Topological Defects and Gravitational Waves in Higgs Portal
• Constraints on Anisotropic Cosmic Birefringence from CMB B-mode Polarization
• Primordial Black Holes from Spatially Varying Cosmological Constant Induced by Field Fluctuations in Extra Dimensions
• Gauge coupling jump and small instantons from a large non-minimal coupling