Distinguishing k-defects from their canonical twins

Journal Article · Mon Nov 15 00:00:00 EST 2010 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.82.105006· OSTI ID:21503657

Andrews, Melinda; Lewandowski, Matt; Trodden, Mark; Wesley, Daniel ^[1]

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1. Center for Particle Cosmology, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, 209 S 33rd Street, Philadelphia Pennsylvania 19104-6396 (United States)

We study k-defects--topological defects in theories with more than two derivatives and second-order equations of motion--and describe some striking ways in which these defects both resemble and differ from their analogues in canonical scalar field theories. We show that, for some models, the homotopy structure of the vacuum manifold is insufficient to establish the existence of k-defects, in contrast to the canonical case. These results also constrain certain families of Dirac-Born-Infeld instanton solutions in the 4-dimensional effective theory. We then describe a class of k-defect solutions, which we dub ''doppelgaengers,'' that precisely match the field profile and energy density of their canonical scalar field theory counterparts. We give a complete characterization of Lagrangians which admit doppelgaenger domain walls. By numerically computing the fluctuation eigenmodes about domain wall solutions, we find different spectra for doppelgaengers and canonical walls, allowing us to distinguish between k-defects and the canonical walls they mimic. We search for doppelgaengers for cosmic strings by numerically constructing solutions of Dirac-Born-Infeld and canonical scalar field theories. Despite investigating several examples, we are unable to find doppelgaenger cosmic strings, hence the existence of doppelgaengers for defects with codimension >1 remains an open question.

• OSTI ID: 21503657
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 82, Issue 10; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.82.105006; (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
BORN-INFELD THEORY
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
ENERGY DENSITY
EQUATIONS OF MOTION
FIELD THEORIES
FLUCTUATIONS
LAGRANGIAN FUNCTION
MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS
SCALAR FIELDS
SPECTRA
TOPOLOGY
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
EQUATIONS
FUNCTIONS
MATHEMATICS
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
SIMULATION
VARIATIONS