1995/08/03 by David Coulson, D. Coulson, Z. Lalak +6
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Mathematical Modeling in Engineering #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-ph/9508226
uu-encoded postscript file. To appear in proceedings of PASCOS 95, 15 pages
arxiv created 1995/08/03 · openalex publication_date 1995/08/03 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Non-equilibrium phase transitions of a scalar field in an expanding spacetime are discussed. These transitions are shown to lead, for appropriate potential energy functions, to a biased choice of vacuum structure which can be analytically described using percolation theory. The initial domain wall networks, which form between different vacua, are evolved in time by computer simulation and their behavior analyzed. It is shown that, unlike systems in thermal equilibrium, domain walls formed in biased systems persist for only a short time before decaying exponentially away. This result opens the door to a re-analysis of domain walls in cosmology.