Gravitational waves from Higgs domain walls

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The effective potential for the Standard Model Higgs field allows two quasi-degenerate vacua; one is our vacuum at the electroweak scale, while the other is at a much higher scale. The latter minimum may be at a scale much smaller than the Planck scale, if the potential is lifted by new physics. This gives rise to a possibility of domain wall formation after inflation. If the high-scale minimum is a local minimum, domain walls are unstable and disappear through violent annihilation processes, producing a significant amount of gravitational waves. We estimate the amount of gravitational waves produced from unstable domain walls in the Higgs potential and discuss detectability with future experiments.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)112-117
Number of pages6
JournalPhysics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
Volume745
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015 May 8

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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