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  • Open Access

Collapsing domain walls with Z2-violating coupling to thermalized fermions and their impact on gravitational wave detections

Qing-Quan Zeng, Xi He, Zhao-Huan Yu*, and Jiaming Zheng†

  • *Contact author: yuzhaoh5@mail.sysu.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: zhengjm3@gmail.com
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Phys. Rev. D 111, 115017 – Published 17 June, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/cdsj-bmvx

Abstract

We study the dynamics of domain walls formed through the spontaneous breaking of an approximate Z2 symmetry in a scalar field, focusing on their collapse under the influence of quantum and thermal corrections induced by a Z2-violating Yukawa coupling to Dirac fermions in the thermal bath. The thermal effects make the potential bias between the true and false vacua dependent on the temperature and may lead to notable variations in the annihilation temperature of domain walls, in addition to the shift caused by temperature-independent quantum corrections. These modifications could substantially alter the gravitational wave spectrum produced by collapsing domain walls, potentially providing observable signatures for future gravitational wave detection experiments.

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Phys. Rev. D 111, 115017– Published 17 June, 2025
  • Received 26 January 2025
  • Accepted 23 May 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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