Percolation of domain walls in the two-Higgs doublet model

Abstract

Domain walls formed during a phase transition in a simple field theory model with $Z_2$ symmetry in a periodic box have been demonstrated to annihilate as fast as causality allows and their area density scales $\propto t^{-1}$. We have performed numerical simulations of the dynamics of domain walls in the Two-Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM) where the potential has $Z_2$ symmetry in two spatial dimensions. We observed significant differences with the standard case. Although the extreme long-time limit is the same for the $\approx {10}^5$ sets of random initial configurations analyzed, the percolation process is much slower due to the formation of long-lived loops. We suggest that this is due to the build up of superconducting currents on the walls which could lead ultimately to stationary configurations known as Kinky Vortons. We discuss the relevance of these findings for the production of Vortons in three spatial dimensions.