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Evolution of a kink-antikink ensemble in a quantum vacuum

Mainak Mukhopadhyay1,*, Kohta Murase1,2,†, Atsushi Naruko2,3,‡, and George Zahariade4,§

  • 1Department of Physics, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics, Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
  • 2Center for Gravitational Physics and Quantum Information, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan
  • 3Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics, Pohang 37673, Korea
  • 4Instytut Fizyki Teoretycznej, Uniwersytet Jagielloński, Lojasiewicza 11, 30-348 Kraków, Poland

  • *Contact author: mkm7190@psu.edu
  • †Contact author: kmurase@psu.edu
  • ‡Contact author: naruko@yukawa.kyoto-u.ac.jp
  • §Contact author: george.zahariade@uj.edu.pl
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Phys. Rev. D 111, 116027 – Published 30 June, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/5jpj-wl6l

Abstract

We study the 1+1 flat spacetime dynamics of a classical field configuration corresponding to an ensemble of sine-Gordon kinks and antikinks, semiclassically coupled to a quantum field. This coupling breaks the integrability of the sine-Gordon model resulting in the background’s decay into quantum radiation as kink-antikink pairs annihilate. We find evidence that, on average, the energy of the ensemble scales as t−α with α<1 and independent of the coupling strength or the mass of the quantum field. The generalization of this result to domain wall networks in higher spacetime dimensions could be relevant to particle production in the early universe.

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Phys. Rev. D 111, 116027– Published 30 June, 2025
  • Received 11 March 2025
  • Accepted 5 June 2025
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