Bubble Nucleation with Chern-Simons Interaction

13 Mar 2025
Seminars and colloquia
Time
-
Venue
Simpkins Lee Seminar Room
Beecroft Building, Department of Physics, 91探花, Parks Road, 91探花, OX1 3PU
Speaker(s)

Dr , 91探花 U., Theor. Phys.

Seminar series
Dalitz seminar
For more information contact

Abstract

We study axion electrodynamics, including the Chern-Simons interaction term, in the presence of parallel background electric and magnetic fields. In this setup, we find a new back-reacted instanton solution which corresponds to the nucleation of an axion domain wall that screens the electromagnetic fields in a process analogous to Schwinger pair production, despite the absence of light charged particles. The full solution includes the effect of the Chern-Simons induced charges and currents on the axion domain wall arising from the Witten and Sikivie (anomalous Hall) effects, respectively. The Euclidean solution has a reduced O(2)脳O(2) symmetry which describes the nucleation of a prolate bubble in its rest-frame. A unique feature of this solution is that the region of lower energy density is outside the bubble rather than inside.