Defect formation and critical dynamics in the early Universe

BEI-LOK HU; STEVE RAMSEY; GREG STEPHENS; ESTEBAN CALZETTA

PHYSICAL REVIEW D - PARTICLE AND FILDS

APS

Año: 1999 vol. 59 p. 1 - 15

0556-2821

We study the nonequilibrium dynamics leading to the formation of topological defects in a symmetry-breaking phase transition of a quantum scalar field with λΦ4 self-interaction in a spatially flat, radiation-dominated Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe. The quantum field is initially in a finite-temperature symmetry-restored state and the phase transition develops as the universe expands and cools. We present a first-principles, microscopic approach in which the nonperturbative, nonequilibrium dynamics of the quantum field is derived from the two-loop, two-particle-irreducible closed-time-path effective action.