Emergence of oscillons in an expanding background

Journal Article · Tue Apr 15 00:00:00 EDT 2008 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.77.085019· OSTI ID:21250054

Farhi, E; Guth, A H; Iqbal, N ^[1]; Graham, N ^[1]; Rosales, R R ^[2]; Stamatopoulos, N ^[3]

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1. Center for Theoretical Physics, Laboratory for Nuclear Science, and Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (United States)
2. Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (United States)
3. Department of Physics, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont 05753 (United States)

We consider a (1+1) dimensional scalar field theory that supports oscillons, which are localized, oscillatory, stable solutions to nonlinear equations of motion. We study this theory in an expanding background and show that oscillons now lose energy, but at a rate that is exponentially small when the expansion rate is slow. We also show numerically that a universe that starts with (almost) thermal initial conditions will cool to a final state where a significant fraction of the energy of the universe--on the order of 50%--is stored in oscillons. If this phenomenon persists in realistic models, oscillons may have cosmological consequences.

• OSTI ID: 21250054
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 77, Issue 8; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.77.085019; (c) 2008 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COSMOLOGY
EQUATIONS OF MOTION
EXPANSION
MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
ONE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
SCALAR FIELDS
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
UNIVERSE