# ITEP-15/99 April 1999 A remark on collisions of domain walls in a supersymmetric model

Abstract

The process of collision of two parallel domain walls in a supersymmetric model is studied both in effective Lagrangian approximation and by numerical solving of the exact classical field problem. For small initial velocities we find that the walls interaction looks like elastic reflection with some delay. It is also shown that in such approximation internal parameter of the wall may be considered as a time-dependent dynamical variable.

Now it is well-known that in a wide class of supersymmetric theories families of the so-called BPS domain walls exist, see e.g.  and references therein. These families of domain walls link various supersymmetric vacua. Although the internal structure of each domain wall within the family is different, they all have the same energy. So each family of domain walls is degenerate with respect to at least one parameter transformation, which may be considered as a label of each specific domain wall configuration. To be more concrete let us consider theory described by the superpotential

$$W(\mathrm{\Phi },X)=\frac{m^2}{\lambda }\mathrm{\Phi }\frac{1}{3}\lambda \mathrm{\Phi }^3\alpha \mathrm{\Phi }X^2,$$
$`(1)`$   
where $`m`$ is a mass parameter and $`\alpha `$ and $`\lambda `$ are coupling constants. We assume that $`\alpha `$ and $`\lambda `$ are real and positive. The Lagrangian for the real parts of the scalar fields is given for this theory by the expression

$$L=(\varphi )^2+(\chi )^2\left(\frac{m^2}{\lambda }\lambda \varphi ^2\alpha \chi ^2\right)^24\alpha ^2\varphi ^2\chi ^2.$$
$`(2)`$   
The potential term of Eq. (2) has four degenerate vacuum states, shown in Fig. 1. This theory posses a wide class of domain walls, which link different vacua of the theory. These domain wall configurations may be obtained as solutions of Bogomol’nyi - Prasad - Sommerfeld (BPS, Ref. ) equations, which look in the case of Eq. (2) like

| $`{\displaystyle \frac{df}{dz}}=1f^2h^2`$ , |
| --- |
| $`{\displaystyle \frac{dh}{dz}}={\displaystyle \frac{2}{\rho }}fh.`$ |

$`(3)`$   
Here $`\rho =\lambda /\alpha `$, $`m=1`$ and $`z`$ is a space coordinate. As it was shown in Refs. , for the case $`\rho =4`$ solutions for $`f(z)`$ and $`h(z)`$ may be obtained in analytical form:

$$f(z)=\frac{a(e^{2z}1)}{a+2e^z+ae^{2z}},h^2(z)=\frac{2e^z}{a+2e^z+ae^{2z}},$$
$`(4)`$   
where $`a`$ is continuous parameter, $`0a+\mathrm{}`$.

The solution (4) links vacua states 1 and 2. Depending on $`a`$ the specific form of $`f(z)`$ and $`h(z)`$ looks quite different. Considering region $`0<a<1`$, we may introduce different parameterization:

$$\mathrm{cosh}s=\frac{1}{a}.$$
$`(5)`$   
In terms of the parameter $`s`$ the functions $`f(z)`$ and $`h(z)`$ look like

$$f(z)=\frac{1}{2}\left(\mathrm{tanh}\frac{zs}{2}+\mathrm{tanh}\frac{z+s}{2}\right),$$

$$h^2(z)=\frac{1}{2}\left(1\mathrm{tanh}\frac{zs}{2}\mathrm{tanh}\frac{z+s}{2}\right).$$
$`(6)`$   
From Eqs. (6) it is clear that at large $`s`$ functions $`f`$ and $`h`$ split into two orthogonal to z-axis elementary walls corresponding to the transitions $`13`$ at $`z=s`$ and $`32`$ at $`z=s`$. Thus at large $`s`$ Eqs. (6) describe two far separated domain walls. The purpose of this research is to study the dynamics of the collision between these two separated domain walls $`13`$ and $`32`$. Evidently, this question is outside of the BPS approximation and to study this problem we should solve exact field equations, which follow form the Lagrangian (2).

Recently in Ref.  the problem of intersection of two domain walls in this model was considered. The authors didn’t solve the exact equations of motion, but used more simple reasonable approach considering the parameter $`a`$ as dynamical effective variable. In what follows we shall use both methods, considering $`a`$ (or $`s`$) as a function of time $`t`$, as well as solving exact equations of motion for fields $`f`$ and $`h`$. We shall demonstrate that effective Lagrangian method is consistent with solution of Cauchy problem for exact field system.

In terms of $`a`$ (5) the energy of the domain wall configuration (4) has the form

$$E=E_0+E_1,E_1=\frac{1}{2}\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\dot{a}^2\frac{a\mathrm{cosh}^3z+\mathrm{cosh}2z}{(a\mathrm{cosh}z+1)^4}𝑑z.$$
$`(7)`$   
Here $`E_0`$ does not depend on $`a`$ and is sum of energy densities of two far separated walls $`13`$ and $`32`$. Its specific form is inessential for our future consideration. Replacing $`a(t)`$ by $`s(t)`$ according to Eq. (5), we get the following effective Lagrangian for the new dynamical variable $`s`$:

$$L_{eff}=\frac{1}{2}m(s)\dot{s}^2,$$
$`(8)`$   
where

$$m(s)=2\left[s\mathrm{tanh}s+\frac{5}{3}\frac{2s}{\mathrm{tanh}s}+\frac{1}{\mathrm{tanh}^2s}\left(\frac{s}{\mathrm{tanh}s}1\right)\right].$$
$`(9)`$   
The effective Lagrangian (8) yields the following differential equation for the function $`s(t)`$:

$$m(s)\ddot{s}+\frac{1}{2}m^{}(s)\dot{s}^2=0.$$
$`(10)`$   
To observe the process of the walls collision we have to start with initial configuration (4) with some $`s(0)1`$ and $`\dot{s}(0)<0`$. As the parameter $`s`$ has a meaning of distance between the walls, such configuration corresponds to $`13`$ and $`32`$ walls moving along $`z`$-axis towards each other. Numerical solving of Eq. (10) shows that $`s(t)`$ decreases to zero. In the range of small $`s`$ the solution can be obtained analytically:

$$m(s)\frac{16}{15}s^2,s(t)=\sqrt{2s(t_{})\dot{s}(t_{})(tt_{})+s^2(t_{})},$$
$`(11)`$   
where $`t_{}`$ denotes the moment of transition from numerical solving of Eq. (10) to analytical solution (11). While $`s`$ decreases from $`+\mathrm{}`$ to 0, the parameter $`a`$ changes from 0 to 1. At $`s=0`$ (point $`A`$ in Fig. 2) we have for the fields:

$$f(z)=\mathrm{tanh}(z/2),h(z)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}\mathrm{cosh}(z/2)}.$$
$`(12)`$   
In the range $`1<a<+\mathrm{}`$ the parameter $`s`$, defined by Eq. (5), becomes pure imaginary. Therefore it is suitable to introduce $`\stackrel{~}{s}`$ as

$$\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{s}=\frac{1}{a}.$$
$`(13)`$   
The effective Lagrangian for $`\stackrel{~}{s}`$ is analogous to (8):

$$\stackrel{~}{L}_{eff}=\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{~}{m}(\stackrel{~}{s})\dot{\stackrel{~}{s}}^2$$
$`(14)`$   
with

$$\stackrel{~}{m}(\stackrel{~}{s})=2\left[\stackrel{~}{s}\mathrm{tan}\stackrel{~}{s}\frac{5}{3}+\frac{2\stackrel{~}{s}}{\mathrm{tan}\stackrel{~}{s}}+\frac{1}{\mathrm{tan}^2\stackrel{~}{s}}\left(\frac{\stackrel{~}{s}}{\mathrm{tan}\stackrel{~}{s}}1\right)\right].$$
$`(15)`$   
At the moment when $`a=1`$ (or $`s=0`$) we pass from $`s`$ to $`\stackrel{~}{s}`$ which increases from 0 to $`\pi /2`$. At $`\stackrel{~}{s}=\pi /2`$ (point $`B`$ in Fig. 2) the fields $`f`$ and $`h`$ have the form:

$$f(z)=\mathrm{tanh}z,h(z)0.$$
$`(16)`$   
After that, $`\stackrel{~}{s}`$ decreases to 0 and becomes pure imaginary. Therefore at the moment of $`\stackrel{~}{s}=0`$ (point $`C`$ in Fig. 2) we return back to $`s`$, which begins to increase from 0 to $`+\mathrm{}`$. Note, that for $`\stackrel{~}{s}`$ we also used analytical solutions at $`\stackrel{~}{s}1`$ and $`|\stackrel{~}{s}\pi /2|1`$. The summary $`(s,\stackrel{~}{s})`$ $`t`$-dependencies for two initial relative velocities $`\dot{s}(0)=0.05`$ and $`\dot{s}(0)=0.1`$ are represented in Fig. 3.

Developed dynamical variable approximation seems to be reasonable, but needs in numerical confirmation. We performed calculation of evolution of the described initial configuration by solving numerically the Cauchy problem for the system of two differential equations in partial derivatives for the fields $`f`$ and $`h`$. These equations are consequence of the Lagrangian (2). Results of the numerical solving of the Cauchy problem for fields $`f`$ and $`h`$ were compared with the fields profiles obtained for current value of the parameter $`(s,\stackrel{~}{s})`$ at all times $`t`$. For not too large values of $`\dot{s}(0)`$ we observed good agreement. It confirms that the parameter $`(s,\stackrel{~}{s})`$ is a good dynamical variable for describing the process of the BPS domain walls collision in the SUSY model that was considered.

Note, that with $`\dot{s}(0)`$ being increased in numerical calculations of the exact field problem we observe progressing difference from the field profiles restored with the help of the dynamical variable method. The question whether it is a problem of computational scheme or it is related with excitation of other than zero mode field degrees of freedom is under consideration now.

Acknowledgments

We are thankful to M. B. Voloshin for useful discussions. We would also like to thank A. A. Panfilov for his help with computer graphics.

This work was supported in part by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research under grants No 98-02-17316 and No 96-15-96578 (both authors). The work of V. A. Gani was also supported by the INTAS Grant No 96-0457 within the research program of the International Center for Fundamental Physics in Moscow. One of the authors (A. E. Kudryavtsev) would like to thank RS Grant for financial support.

Figure captions

Fig. 1. Locations of the vacuum states of the model.

Fig. 2. A scheme of the $`13`$ and $`32`$ walls collision process. Numbers 1, 2, 3 denote corresponding vacua.

Fig. 3. The dynamical variable ($`s,\stackrel{~}{s}`$) as a function of time for two different values of the initial velocity $`\dot{s}(0)`$.