Speaker
Simone Blasi
(Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Description
Topological defects can act as local impurities that seed cosmological phase transitions. In this talk we will focus on how domain walls can affect the electroweak phase transition in the minimal singlet-scalar extension of the SM (xSM) with a $Z_2$ symmetry. When the transition is two-step, the early breaking of the $Z_2$ implies the formation of domain walls which subsequently act as seeds for the second step. The rate of the seeded phase transition can be evaluated within a 3d theory on the domain wall surface, and it is generically faster when compared to the standard homogeneous nucleation. We will comment on phenomenological implications for gravitational waves and baryogenesis.
Authors
Alberto Mariotti
(Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Simone Blasi
(Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
