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Detecting Domain Walls of Axionlike Models Using Terrestrial Experiments

M. Pospelov, S. Pustelny, M. P. Ledbetter, D. F. Jackson Kimball, W. Gawlik, and D. Budker
Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 021803 – Published 11 January 2013
Physics logo See Focus story: Ground-Based Instruments Could Detect Cosmic Wall Structures

Abstract

Stable topological defects of light (pseudo)scalar fields can contribute to the Universe’s dark energy and dark matter. Currently, the combination of gravitational and cosmological constraints provides the best limits on such a possibility. We take an example of domain walls generated by an axionlike field with a coupling to the spins of standard-model particles and show that, if the galactic environment contains a network of such walls, terrestrial experiments aimed at the detection of wall-crossing events are realistic. In particular, a geographically separated but time-synchronized network of sensitive atomic magnetometers can detect a wall crossing and probe a range of model parameters currently unconstrained by astrophysical observations and gravitational experiments.

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  • Received 23 July 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.021803

© 2013 American Physical Society

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Ground-Based Instruments Could Detect Cosmic Wall Structures

Published 11 January 2013

Invisible sheetlike structures, which might pervade space and contribute to dark matter or dark energy, could be revealed as they pass by Earth-based detectors.

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Authors & Affiliations

M. Pospelov1,2, S. Pustelny3,4,*, M. P. Ledbetter4, D. F. Jackson Kimball5, W. Gawlik3, and D. Budker4,6

  • 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia V8P 1A1, Canada
  • 2Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2W9, Canada
  • 3Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University, Reymonta 4, 30-059 Kraków, Poland
  • 4Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720-7300, USA
  • 5Department of Physics, California State University—East Bay, Hayward, California 94542-3084, USA
  • 6Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

  • *pustelny@uj.edu.pl

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Vol. 110, Iss. 2 — 11 January 2013

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