Frustrated expectations : defect networks and dark energy

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2006

Authors

P. P. Avelino (Author) Other; C.J.A.P. Martins (Author) Other; J. Menezes (Author) Other; R. Menezes (Author) Other; Joana Cassilda Rodrigues Espain de Oliveira (Author) FEUP

Journal

Title: Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology

Vol. 73 No. 123519

Pages: 1-9

ISSN: 1550-7998

Publisher: American Physical Society

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 42 Citations

Scopus - 46 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Natural sciences > Physical sciences

CORDIS: Physical sciences > Astronomy > Cosmology

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-004-KKM

Abstract (EN): We discuss necessary conditions for a network of cosmic domain walls to have a chance of providing the dark energy that might explain the recent acceleration of the universe. We derive a strong bound on the curvature of the walls, which shows that viable candidate networks must be finetuned and non-standard. We also discuss various requirements that any stable lattice of frustrated walls must obey. We conjecture that, even though one can build (by hand) lattices that would be stable, no such lattices will ever come out of realistic domain wall forming cosmological phase transitions. We provide some simple numerical simulations that illustrate our results and correct some misconceptions in the published literature, but a detailed numerical analysis is left for a companion paper.

Language: Portuguese

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific