DESY 17-036

A review of gravitational waves from cosmic domain walls

arXiv:1703.02576v2 [hep-ph] 6 May 2017

Ken’ichi Saikawa

Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY,

Notkestrasse 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany

Abstract

In this contribution, we discuss the cosmological scenario where unstable domain walls
are formed in the early universe and their late-time annihilation produces a significant
amount of gravitational waves. After describing cosmological constraints on long-lived
domain walls, we estimate the typical amplitude and frequency of gravitational waves
observed today. We also review possible extensions of the standard model of particle
physics that predict the formation of unstable domain walls and can be probed by
observation of relic gravitational waves. It is shown that recent results of pulser timing
arrays and direct detection experiments partially exclude the relevant parameter space,
and that a much wider parameter space can be covered by the next generation of
gravitational wave observatories.
Contents
1 Introduction 2

2 Domain walls and cosmology 3

2.1 Field theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 Cosmological evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3 Biased domain walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

3 Estimation of gravitational waves from domain walls 10

4 Particle physics models 13

4.1 Standard Model Higgs field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.2 Axion models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.3 Supersymmetric models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

5 Implications for present and future observations 18

6 Conclusion 21

1 Introduction
The progress of direct observations [1, 2] of gravitational waves (GWs) is bringing about drastic
developments in astrophysics and cosmology. We expect to obtain a lot of important information
about physics at very high energies from direct observations of GWs due to the fact that they
interact very weakly with matter and hence preserve almost all the features characterizing astro-
physical or cosmological events [3, 4]. Experimental sensitivities for the direct detection of GWs
have been improved substantially during the past decades, and many new GW observatories are
now planned to be built in the world. In this context, it is worth investigating various possible
sources of GWs and clarifying to what extent we can extract the information about new physics
from future observations. So far, various cosmological sources of relic GWs are discussed in the
literature, such as the primordial amplification of vacuum fluctuations [5–10], cosmological phase
transitions [11, 12], cosmic strings [13–15], and preheating after inflation [16–20]. Furthermore, the
recent starting of the GW astronomy can provide a distinctive way of testing General Relativity
and other theories of gravity [21].
In this article, we consider domain walls as possible cosmological sources of GWs. Domain walls
are sheet-like topological defects, which might be created in the early universe when a discrete
symmetry is spontaneously broken [22]. Since discrete symmetries are ubiquitous in high energy
physics beyond the Standard Model (SM), many new physics models predict the formation of
domain walls in the early universe. By considering their cosmological evolution, it is possible to
deduce several constraints on such models even if their energy scales are much higher than that
probed in the laboratory experiments.
In general, the formation of domain walls is regarded as a problem in cosmology [23], since
their energy density soon dominates the total energy density of the universe, which conflicts with
the present observational results. However, we can consider the possibility that domain walls
are unstable and collapse before they overclose the universe [24–26]. Their unstability might be
guaranteed if the discrete symmetry is only approximate and explicitly broken by a small parameter
in the theory. In such a scenario, a significant amount of GWs can be produced during the process of
collisions and annihilations of domain walls, and they may remain as a stochastic GW background

2
in the present universe. Observations of such relic GWs will enable us to trace the events in the
very early universe and provide a new way of investigating physics at very high energies.
The purpose of this article is to review the physics of cosmic domain walls and to evaluate
the detectability of GWs produced by them in present and future observations. In particular,
we summarize the results of recent theoretical developments including various particle physics
motivations so far proposed in the literature and the methods to estimate the GW signatures based
on field theoretic lattice simulations.
We note that the production mechanism of GWs discussed in this article is different from that
discussed in the context of phase transitions [e.g. Refs. [11, 12, 27–30]]. In the latter case, a strong
first order phase transition is assumed, and GWs are produced due to the collision of bubbles and
subsequent turbulences. On the other hand, in the former case it is not necessary to assume the
first order phase transition, and GWs are produced due to the late-time motion and interaction of
domain walls. The key ingredient of this scenario is the existence of quasi-degenerate vacua after
the phase transition.
This review is organized as follows. The theoretical basics of domain walls and cosmological
constraints on them are described in Sec. 2. The semi-analytical approach to estimate the pro-
duction of GWs from domain walls is discussed in Sec. 3. Section 4 deals with particle physics
models that predict the production of a significant amount of GWs from domain walls. In Sec. 5,
we compare the GW signatures with sensitivities of present and future experiments. Finally, we
conclude in Sec. 6.

2 Domain walls and cosmology

2.1 Field theory
As an illustrative example, let us consider the following toy model of a real scalar field φ,
1
L = − ∂ µ φ∂µ φ − V (φ), (2.1)
2
λ 2
2
V (φ) = φ − v2 . (2.2)
4
Note that the potential V (φ) has two degenerate minima at φ = ±v. In this theory there is a
discrete Z2 symmetry, under which the field transforms as φ → −φ. This discrete symmetry is
spontaneously broken when the scalar field acquires a vacuum expectation value (VEV), hφi = ±v.
The scalar field takes one of the two discrete values (+v and −v) after the spontaneous symmetry
breaking, which means that two different domains can appear. Domain walls are produced around
the boundary of these two domains.
Consider a static planar domain wall configuration lying perpendicular to the z-axis in the
Minkowski space, φ = φ(z). Solving the field equation d2 φ/dz 2 − dV /dφ = 0, we obtain
"r #
λ
φ(z) = v tanh vz . (2.3)
2

We see that φ(z) approaches ±v as z → ±∞, and it rapidly changes around z = 0. The width of
the domain wall δ can be estimated as a typical length scale of the spatial variation of φ(z),
r !−1
λ
δ≃ v . (2.4)
2

3
 The energy-momentum tensor for the static solution φ = φ(z) is given by
 2
dφ(z)
Tµν (z) = diag(+1, −1, −1, 0). (2.5)
dz

Integrating T00 over the direction perpendicular to the wall, we obtain its surface energy density,
r
4 λ 3
Z ∞
σ= dzT00 = v . (2.6)
−∞ 3 2
R
Note
R that the integration of the spatial components results in the same quantity: dzT11 =
dzT22 = −σ. Therefore, σ is also referred to as the tension of domain walls.
Another interesting example is the following model of a real scalar field a,

1 m2 v 2 h  a i
L = − ∂µ a∂ µ a − 1 − cos N , (2.7)
2 N2 v
where the field a is defined within a finite domain [0, 2πv], and N is a positive integer. This kind of
potential naturally arises in the context of axion models, which will be discussed in Sec. 4.2. In this
model, there is a discrete ZN symmetry under which the field transforms as a/v → a/v + 2πk/N
with k = 0, 1, . . . , N − 1. This symmetry is spontaneously broken once the field a settles down to
one of N degenerate minima of the potential, and domain walls are formed around the boundary
of these vacua.
If we consider a planar wall orthogonal to z-axis a = a(z), the solution of the classical field
equation reads
a(z) 2πk 4
= + tan−1 exp (mz) . (2.8)
v N N
This configuration interpolates between two vacua, a/v = 2πk/N at z → −∞ and a/v = 2π(k +
1)/N at z → +∞. From the above solution, we can estimate the thickness of the wall as

δ ≃ m−1 . (2.9)

The tension of domain walls reads

2
8mv 2

∞
da
Z
σ= dz = . (2.10)
−∞ dz N2

As we have seen in above two examples, the properties of domain walls can be characterized by
two model-dependent quantities, the tension σ and the thickness δ. In general, the wall thickness
is roughly given by Compton wavelength of the field which causes the spontaneous breaking of
discrete symmetry, while the tension is estimated in terms of the height of the potential energy V0
separating the degenerate minima,
σ ∼ δ · V0 . (2.11)
In the following, we do not specify the magnitude of σ and provide some model-independent argu-
ments about the evolution of domain walls. We will come back to the mode-dependent issues in
Sec. 4.

4
2.2 Cosmological evolution
Domain walls exist if different vacua are populated in the universe. Whether such a distribution
of vacua appears or not depends on the cosmological initial conditions. In particular, it is widely
believed that the universe underwent a period of exponentially rapid expansion, called inflation.
Depending on the conditions at the inflationary epoch, the formation of domain walls must be
seriously taken into account.
Suppose that the toy model scalar field φ introduced in the previous subsection stayed at a
certain vacuum before the inflationary period. In such a setup, we naively expect that domain
walls do not exist in the present universe, since a domain on which hφi takes an uniform value
exponentially glows during inflation and the size of such a domain is much larger than the present
horizon size. However, such a naive expectation is not necessarily true. During inflation, the field
φ acquires vacuum fluctuations of order δφ ∼ Hinf /2π if its effective mass mφ [m2φ = 2λv 2 in the
model given by Eq. (2.2)] is smaller than Hinf [31–33], where Hinf is the Hubble parameter during
inflation. Once such a condition is satisfied, the φ field easily jumps into other domains within one
Hubble time, and as a result many different domains can exist after inflation, which leads to the
formation of domain walls. Furthermore, even if Hinf is sufficiently small such that the φ field never
acquires large fluctuations during inflation, it can thermalize and have thermal fluctuations due to
the reheating after inflation. If this is the case, the discrete symmetry is thermally restored when
the maximum temperature after inflation Tmax becomes larger than mφ . After that, domain walls
are formed when the universe cools below some critical temperature. Therefore, we expect that the
formation of domain walls can happen if either the Hubble parameter during inflation Hinf or the
maximum temperature after inflation Tmax is sufficiently larger than the mass mφ of the field φ.1
After the formation of domain walls, their dynamics can be described by two kinds of forces.
One is the tension force, which is given by
σ
pT ∼ , (2.12)
Rwall
where Rwall represents a typical curvature radius of the walls. The other is the friction force, which
appears if there is a interaction of the field composing the core of domain walls and particles in
thermal bath. It can be estimated as [36]

pF ∼ ∆p · n ∼ vT 4 , (2.13)

where ∆p ∼ T v is a typical momentum transfer due to the collision with a particle, n ∼ T 3 is the
number density of particles, and v is the velocity of domain walls. These two forces are balanced,
pT ∼ pF , and from this condition we obtain

σ (σt)1/2
v∼ ∼ , (2.14)
T 4 Rwall MPl
σ 1/2 t3/2
Rwall ∼ vt ∼ , (2.15)
MPl

where we have used T 4 ∼ MPl 2 /t2 assuming the radiation dominated background, and M
Pl ≃
18
2.435 × 10 GeV is the reduced Planck mass. Let tr denote the time at which domain walls become
relativistic. Equations (2.14) and (2.15) imply that their curvature radius becomes comparable to
1
We emphasize that the condition is not robust, and we can consider several loopholes depending on the details of
the models. For instance, if the φ field never thermalizes, domain walls may not be formed even when Tmax > mφ is
satisfied. We can also consider the case where the effective mass mφ,eff during inflation is different from the bare mass
mφ . In such a case, it is possible to avoid the formation of domain walls even when Hinf > mφ is satisfied [34, 35].

5
the horizon size at that time, Rwall ∼ MPl2 /σ ∼ t . We also see that their energy density ρ
r wall
dominates over the total energy density of the universe ρc at that time,
2
σ σ2 MPl
ρwall ∼ ∼ 2 ∼ ∼ ρc (tr ). (2.16)
Rwall MPl t2r

In other words, they remain non-relativistic as long as their energy density is subdominant.
The friction force is exponentially damped when the temperature of the background radiations
becomes less than the mass of particles that interact with domain walls. Therefore, we expect
that the effect of the friction force becomes negligible at sufficiently late times if domain walls only
interact with massive particle states. On the other hand, if they interact with lighter particles such
as those in the SM, we must carefully evaluate the effect of the friction force in order to describe
their late time evolution. In what follows, we focus on the case where the friction force becomes
negligible at sufficiently early times.
Once the friction force becomes irrelevant, the dynamics of domain walls is dominated by the
tension force, which stretches them up to the horizon size. Many numerical studies [37–43] confirmed
that the evolution of domain walls in this regime can be described by the scaling solution, in which
their energy density evolves according to the simple scaling law ρwall ∝ t−1 , and their typical size
is given by the Hubble radius ∼ t.2 An analytic method to calculate the evolution of domain walls
was also proposed in Refs. [44, 45], which again showed the existence of the scaling solution.
It will be convenient to parameterize the energy density of domain walls in the scaling regime
as
σ
ρwall (t) = A , (2.17)
t
where A is a parameter which takes an almost constant value during the scaling regime, and we
call it an area parameter. According to the results of field theoretic simulations of domain walls in
the Z2 symmetric model [Eq. (2.2)] performed in Ref. [46], we have

A ≃ 0.8 ± 0.1, (2.18)

where the error corresponds to the statistical uncertainty caused by different realizations of initial
conditions for the simulations. The area parameter was also estimated for domain walls in the ZN
symmetric model [Eq. (2.7)] in Refs. [47, 48]. It was shown that the value of A for the case with
N = 2 agrees with Eq. (2.18), and that it increases proportionally with N .
The energy density of domain walls in the scaling regime ρwall ∝ t−1 decays slower than that
of cold matters ρmatter ∝ R−3 (t) and radiations ρrad ∝ R−4 (t), where R(t) is the scale factor of
the universe. Therefore, they gradually dominate the energy density of the universe. From the
condition ρc (t) = ρwall (t), we estimate the time at which the wall domination occurs,
2
3MPl
tdom =
4Aσ
 −1
3 −1 σ
≃ 2.93 × 10 sec A . (2.19)
TeV3
Here we assumed that the total energy density of the universe is dominated by radiations before
2 /4t2 . Once domain walls dominate the energy density of the universe, the
t = tdom , i.e., ρc = 3MPl
2
We note that the results of numerical simulations imply ρwall ∝ t−ν , where the exponent ν slightly deviates from
ν = 1. At this point it is unclear whether this deviation represents some physical effect or just a numerical artifact
which could be removed if we improve the dynamical range of the simulation. In this article, we carry out the analysis
by assuming that the evolution of domain walls is described by the exact scaling law [Eq. (2.17)].

6
subsequent evolution of the universe is drastically altered. The equation of state for an isotropic
gas of non-relativistic domain walls is given by w = −2/3 [36], which implies that the scale factor
in the wall dominated universe evolves as

R(t) ∝ t2 . (2.20)

Such a rapid expansion is incompatible with standard cosmology.

Even if the energy density of domain walls is subdominant at the present time, they may cause
another problem. Since their typical curvature radius is comparable to the Hubble radius, they
introduce large scale density fluctuations, whose magnitude is estimated as
 
δρ ρwall 12 σ
∼ ∼ Gσt0 ∼ 10 , (2.21)
ρ ρc TeV3
where G is Newton’s gravitational constant, and we used t0 ∼ H0−1 with t0 and H0 being the present
cosmic time and the Hubble constant, respectively. The observation of the cosmic microwave
background radiation implies δρ/ρ . O(10−5 ), from which we obtain the following condition

σ 1/3 . O(MeV). (2.22)

This constraint was first discussed in Ref. [23], and it is referred to as the Zel’dovich-Kobzarev-
Okun bound. We see that domain walls with a tension as large as σ > O(MeV 3 ) must not exist in
the universe at the present time.

2.3 Biased domain walls

One possible solution to the domain wall problem is to introduce an energy bias in the potential,
which lifts the degenerate minima [24–26].3 Let us consider the model for the real scalar field φ
discussed in Sec. 2.1. Here we artificially introduce the following term
 
1 2 2
∆V (φ) = ǫvφ φ −v , (2.23)
3
in addition to Eq. (2.2), where ǫ is a dimensionless constant. The modified potential is shown in
Figure 1. This potential has minima at φ = ±v, but there is an energy difference between them,
4 4
Vbias ≡ V (−v) − V (+v) = ǫv . (2.24)
3
Because of the existence of this energy difference, domain walls become unstable and eventually col-
lapse. Note that the additional term (2.23) explicitly breaks the discrete Z2 symmetry. Therefore,
this solution works if the discrete symmetry is not exact, but holds only approximately.
We note that domain walls cannot be created from the beginning if the energy deference between
two vacua Vbias is sufficiently large [25]. In order to clarify the condition to have domain walls in
the presence of the energy bias, let us consider the probabilities p+ and p− in which the scalar field
ends up in the plus vacuum (φ = +v) and the minus vacuum (φ = −v), respectively, after the
phase transition. The ratio between these two probabilities is given by
   
p− ∆F Vbias
= exp − ≃ exp − , (2.25)
p+ T V0
3
It is also possible to avoid the domain wall problem by assuming an asymmetric probability distribution for initial
field fluctuations [49] instead of introducing the energy bias in the potential. Here we do not consider such a scenario,
since it depends on the models of the evolution of the early universe, which must produce an appropriate initial field
distribution.

7
 Figure 1: Sketch of the biased potential given by Eqs. (2.2) and (2.23).

where ∆F = Vbias · ξ 3 is the difference of the free energy between two vacua, ξ is the correlation
length at the epoch of the phase transition, and we estimate T as the Ginzburg temperature,
T ≃ V0 · ξ 3 , with V0 being the height of the potential barrier between two minima. The above
equation implies that the spatial distribution of two vacua after the phase transition becomes
asymmetric if Vbias 6= 0. According to the prediction of percolation theory, the critical value above
which an infinite cluster of the minus vacuum appears in the space is given by pc = 0.311, if the
system is treated as a three dimensional cubic lattice [50]. Requiring that a large cluster of the
false vacuum appears in the space (p− > pc ), we obtain
 
Vbias 1 − pc
< ln = 0.795. (2.26)
V0 pc
In other words, large scale domain walls are expected to be formed as long as the above condition
is satisfied.
Even if Vbias is sufficiently small such that domain walls are created at the phase transition,
the false vacuum region tends to shrink due to the existence of the energy difference: There is
a volume pressure force acting on the walls, whose magnitude is estimated as pV ∼ Vbias . The
collapse of domain walls happens when this pressure force becomes greater than the tension force
pT ∼ σ/Rwall . If we assume that domain walls have reached the scaling regime beforehand, their
typical curvature radius is given by Rwall ≃ t/A [see Eq. (2.17)]. Hence, from the condition that
two forces become comparable, pV ∼ pT , we can estimate their annihilation time:
Aσ
tann = Cann
Vbias
  −1
−4 σ Vbias
= 6.58 × 10 sec Cann A , (2.27)
TeV3 MeV4
where Cann is a coefficient of O(1). If the annihilation occurs in the radiation dominated era, the
temperature at t = tann is given by

Vbias 1/2
 −1/4  −1/2  
−1/2 −1/2 g∗ (Tann ) σ
Tann = 3.41 × 10 GeV Cann A
−2
, (2.28)
10 TeV3 MeV 4

8
where g∗ (T ) is the relativistic degrees of freedom for the radiation energy density at a given tem-
perature T . The value of Cann (or Cd in Ref. [48]) can be determined from numerical simulations.
It typically takes the value of Cann ≃ 2–5, depending on N for the model with the ZN symmetry
[Eq. (2.7)]. It also depends on the choice of the criterion to determine the decay time of domain
walls in the simulations. For more details, see Ref. [48].
Note that the lifetime tann is inversely proportional to Vbias . If the energy bias is sufficiently
small, domain walls live for a long time. Requiring that their collapse occurs before they overclose
the universe tann < tdom [see Eq. (2.19)], we obtain the lower bound4 on the magnitude of the
energy bias, Vbias > 4Cann A2 σ 2 /3MPl2 , or

 1/2
1/4 1/4 1/2 σ
Vbias > 2.18 × 10 −5
GeV Cann A . (2.29)
TeV3

By using Eq. (2.28), this condition can be rewritten in terms of the annihilation temperature,
 −1/4  1/2
−5 1/2 g∗ (Tann ) σ
Tann > 1.62 × 10 GeV A . (2.30)
10 TeV3
Even if domain walls are annihilated before they overclose the universe, their decay products
may behave as dangerous relics, which places additional constraints on the magnitude of the energy
bias. In particular, if domain walls decay into the SM degrees of freedom, the decay products can
destroy light elements created at the epoch of BBN, which conflicts with the standard cosmological
scenario. The ratio between the energy density of domain walls and the entropy density around
that time is estimated as

g∗ (T ) 3/4 g∗s (T ) −1
      1/2
ρwall σ t
(t) = 2.24 × 10 GeV A
−7
, (2.31)
s 10 10 TeV3 1 sec

where g∗s (T ) is the relativistic degrees of freedom for the entropy density at the temperature T
corresponding to the cosmic time t. According to the constraints on energy injection at the epoch
of BBN [53, 54], we must require that the lifetime should be shorter than tann . 0.01sec, if we
assume that a significant fraction of the energy density of domain walls is converted into energetic
particles. This condition leads to another lower bound on the magnitude of the energy bias,
 1/4
1/4 −4 1/4 1/4 σ
Vbias > 5.07 × 10 GeV Cann A . (2.32)
TeV3
We note that this constraint is derived under the assumption that the decay products strongly
interact with SM particles, and hence it depends on details of underlying particle physics models.
If some stable relics are produced from long-lived domain walls, they would behave as dark
matter and contribute to the energy density of the present universe. In this case, the tension
of domain walls and the magnitude of the energy bias are further constrained from the observed
dark matter abundance. Such a constraint is particularly relevant to axion models, which will be
discussed in Sec. 4.2.
4
The domain wall domination does not directly imply a cosmological disaster. In principle, it can happen in
the early universe without causing any trouble with the standard cosmology if such domain walls are annihilated
before the epoch of Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). For instance, the possibilities of diluting unwanted relics in the
domain wall dominated universe are discussed in Refs. [51, 52]. However, little is known about the detailed dynamics
of domain walls in the domain wall dominated universe, and their behavior in such a scenario is uncertain. Therefore,
in this work we just focus on the case in which the energy density of domain walls never dominates the critical energy
density of the universe, and use the condition of the domain wall domination to indicate the potential uncertainties.

9
3 Estimation of gravitational waves from domain walls
Domain walls having a tension larger than the bound (2.22) must not exist at the present time,
but there is a possibility that they are annihilated before they overclose the universe due to the
existence of the energy bias. It is expected that such collapsing domain walls produce GWs, which
are potentially observable today.
The production of GWs from cosmic domain walls was discussed by several authors [24, 55, 56],
while the first quantitative study aiming at comparing the GW signatures and the sensitivities
of experiments was carried out in Ref. [57]. In Ref. [57], the energy density of the relic GWs
was estimated by solving the evolution of collapsing domain walls numerically and specifying some
ansatzes for initial field configurations. A more improved estimation was performed in Refs. [58,59],
where the production and the evolution of domain walls in the expanding universe were investigated
based on the field theoretic lattice simulations, and the spectrum of GWs was computed by applying
the method introduced in Ref. [60]. The results of Refs. [58, 59] were updated in Ref. [46] by
correcting some error in the numerical code and improving the dynamical range of the simulations.
Let us roughly estimate the energy density of GWs produced by domain walls. Here we assume
that the energy density of domain walls obeys the scaling law (2.17), and that the typical time
scale of the gravitational radiation is given by the Hubble time ∼ t.5 According
... ... to the quadrupole
formula, the power of the gravitational radiation is given by P ∼ GQij Qij ∼ Mwall 2 /t2 , where
2 2
Qij ∼ Mwall t is the quadrupole moment of domain walls, and Mwall ∼ σAt is their mass energy.
Therefore, the energy density of GWs ρgw ∼ P t/t3 reads

ρgw ∼ GA2 σ 2 . (3.1)

From this estimate we expect that the energy density of GWs produced by domain walls is propor-
tional to the square of their tension σ 2 and remains almost constant.
Strictly speaking, the above quadrupole formula cannot be directly applied to domain walls,
since it is only valid in the far-field regime, while the domain wall network is an spatially extended
medium. In order to check the validity of this estimate, an alternative formalism must be employed.
The formalism to compute the production of GWs from dynamical scalar fields is descried in
Ref. [60]. In this approach, the spectrum of GWs can be numerically computed by using Green
functions with transverse-traceless parts of the stress-energy tensor of the scalar field. In this way,
the features shown in Eq. (3.1) can be checked by performing detailed numerical simulations.
In Refs. [46, 58, 59], numerical simulations of domain walls were performed with the aim of
computing the spectrum of GWs produced by them. In the numerical studies, the evolution of the
real scalar field φ in the simple toy model with Z2 symmetry [Eqs. (2.1) and (2.2)] was investigated
by solving the field equation in the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker background,

∇2 dV
φ̈ + 3H φ̇ − 2
φ+ = 0, (3.2)
R (t) dφ

where the potential V (φ) is given by Eq. (2.2). The simulations were executed in the 3D cubic
lattice with the periodic boundary condition. The radiation dominated background [R(t) ∝ t1/2 ]
was assumed in Refs. [46,58], while the evolution in the matter dominated background [R(t) ∝ t2/3 ]
was also investigated in Ref. [59]. It was confirmed that domain walls enter into the scaling regime
[Eq. (2.17)] at late times in the simulations. The effect of the bias term was also investigated
in Ref. [58] by adding Eq. (2.23) in the scalar potential. The results of the simulations showed
5
It can be shown that the amplitude of GWs produced by domain walls in the friction dominated regime is much
smaller than that produced in the scaling regime, because of their small velocity (2.14) and curvature radius (2.15) [61].

10
that the collapse of domain walls occurs for sufficiently large ǫ, where the parameter ǫ controls the
magnitude of the energy bias [Eq. (2.24)], and that the time scale of the collapse agrees with the
estimate in Eq. (2.27).
From the configuration of the scalar field in the numerical simulations, one can estimate the
spectrum of GWs produced by them. The spectrum can be computed by using Green functions with
transverse-traceless parts of the stress-energy tensor of the scalar field [60]. The results obtained
in Ref. [46] are shown in Figure 2, where Sk represents the spectrum of GWs per unit logarithmic
frequency interval,
2π 2 V R4 (t) dρgw
Sk (t) = (t), (3.3)
G d ln k
with V being the volume of the comoving simulation box. The spectrum has a peak at the scale
corresponding to the Hubble radius. We note that the horizontal axes in Figure 2 represents the
comoving wavenumber, and hence the location of the peak kpeak shifts according to kpeak /R(t) ∼
H(t). Since the smallest scale of the structure of domain walls is given by their core width δ [see
Eq. (2.4)], the spectrum falls off at a large wavenumber corresponding to that scale, k/R(t) ∼ δ−1 .
Furthermore, Sk increases as ∼ k3 for k < kpeak , and decreases as ∼ k−1 for k > kpeak . The
behavior Sk ∝ k3 at small k can be deduced from causality [46, 62].

Figure 2: The spectrum of GWs [Eq. (3.3)] for five different conformal times τ = 20, 30, 40, 50,
and 60 obtained in Ref. [46]. All dimensionful quantities are shown in the unit of v = 1, where v
is the VEV of the scalar field [see Eq. (2.2)].

The estimate in Eq. (3.1) can be checked by computing the following quantity
 
1 dρgw
ǫ̃gw ≡ , (3.4)
GA2 σ 2 d ln k peak

where the subscript “peak” means that the quantity is evaluated at the peak of Sk . The results
of numerical simulations clearly show that the value of ǫ̃gw remains almost constant after domain
walls enter into the scaling regime, and it is estimated as [46]

ǫ̃gw ≃ 0.7 ± 0.4, (3.5)

11
where the error corresponds to the statistical uncertainty. Furthermore, the value of ǫ̃gw hardly
depends on the choice of the value of the parameter λ, which determines the tension σ [see Eq. (2.6)].
These facts are consistent with the expectation that the amplitude of GWs is given by Eq. (3.1)
during the scaling regime.
Let us estimate the peak amplitude of GWs produced by long-lived domain walls. The spectrum
of GWs at the cosmic time t is characterized by the following quantity [3, 4]:
1 dρgw (t)
Ωgw (t, f ) = , (3.6)
ρc (t) d ln f
where f = k/2πR(t) is the frequency corresponding to the comoving wavenumber k. From Eq. (3.4),
we have the peak amplitude at the annihilation time of domain walls,
8πǫ̃gw G2 A2 σ 2
 
1 dρgw (tann )
Ωgw (tann )peak = = . (3.7)
ρc (tann ) d ln k peak 3H 2 (tann )

Here, we assume that the production of GWs is suddenly terminated at t = tann ,6 and that it
happens during the radiation dominated era. Then, the peak amplitude of GWs at the present
time t0 is given by
ρgw (t0 )h2 ρc (tann )h2 R(tann ) 4
 
2
Ωgw h (t0 ) = = Ωgw (tann )
ρc (t0 ) ρc (t0 ) R(t0 )
  4/3
2 g∗ (Tann ) g∗s0
= Ωrad h Ωgw (tann ), (3.8)
g∗0 g∗s (Tann )
where g∗0 = 3.36 and g∗s0 = 3.91 are the effective relativistic degrees of freedom at the present time
for the energy density and the entropy density, respectively, Ωrad h2 = 4.15 × 10−5 is the density
parameter of radiations at the present time, and h = H0 /100 km·sec−1 Mpc−1 is the reduced Hubble
parameter. In the first line of Eq. (3.8), we used the fact that the energy density of GWs is diluted
as ρgw ∝ R−4 (t) for t > tann . From Eqs. (3.7) and (3.8), we obtain
 −4/3  2  −4
2 −18 2 g∗s (Tann ) σ Tann
Ωgw h (t0 )peak = 7.2 × 10 ǫ̃gw A . (3.9)
10 1 TeV 3 10−2 GeV
Note that the large GW amplitude is predicted if the tension σ is large and the annihilation
temperature Tann is low, which corresponds to the case where domain walls lived for a long time.
We can also estimate the peak frequency of GWs in terms of the Hubble parameter at the
annihilation time of domain walls,
 
R(tann )
fpeak ≃ H(tann )
R(t0 )
g∗ (Tann ) 1/2 g∗s (Tann ) −1/3
     
−9 Tann
= 1.1 × 10 Hz . (3.10)
10 10 10−2 GeV
The high annihilation temperature Tann results in the high peak frequency. Note that there is a
cutoff frequency corresponding to the width of domain walls,

g∗s (Tann ) −1/3

     −1  −1 
R(tann ) −1 16 Tann δ
fδ ≃ δ = 2.6 × 10 Hz , (3.11)
R(t0 ) 10 10 GeV
−2 1 TeV
6
This assumption is not rigorous since the collapse of domain walls is not instantaneous, and they may continue
to produce GWs until they completely disappear. This ambiguity can be incorporated into the definition of Tann or
the uncertainty of the parameter Cann in Eq. (2.28).

12
which is much higher than the peak frequency. The results of numerical simulations imply that the
spectrum of GWs behave as Ωgw ∝ f −1 for the intermediate frequency range fpeak < f < fδ .
So far we have assumed that the annihilation of domain walls happens during the radiation
dominated era. If it happens before reheating, the above estimates are modified accordingly. Let
us assume that the energy density of the universe is dominated by that of the inflaton, which behaves
as non-relativistic matter, when domain walls are annihilated. Since the Hubble parameter evolves
as H 2 ∝ R−3 (t) at that stage, instead of Eq. (3.8) we have
  4/3  2/3
2 2 g∗ (Treh ) g∗s0 Hreh
Ωgw h (t0 ) = Ωrad h Ωgw (tann ), (3.12)
g∗0 g∗s (Treh ) Hann
where Treh is the reheating temperature, and Hreh and Hann are the Hubble parameters at T = Treh
and T = Tann , respectively. In the case of the perturbative decay of the inflaton, the Hubble
parameter at this stage is given by [63]
1/2
5π 2 g∗2 (T ) T4

H= 2 . (3.13)
72g∗ (Treh ) MPl Treh
Using this relation, we obtain
 8/3  −4/3
2 −18 2 g∗ (Treh ) g∗s (Treh )
Ωgw h (t0 ) ≃ 1.2 × 10 ǫ̃gw A
g∗ (Tann ) 100
20/3  !6
σ 1/3
 −32/3
Treh Tann
× for Tann > Treh . (3.14)
104 GeV 105 GeV 109 GeV

Furthermore, the peak frequency reads

g∗s (Treh ) −1/3 g∗ (Tann ) 1/2

   
−2
fpeak ≃ 8.9 × 10 Hz
100 100
 1/6  −1/3  4/3
g∗ (Treh ) Treh Tann
× for Tann > Treh . (3.15)
g∗ (Tann ) 104 GeV 105 GeV
The spectrum of GWs for the ZN symmetric model [Eq. (2.7)] was also analyzed in Ref. [47].
Similar to the above model with a real scalar field, the spectrum has a peak at the scale corre-
sponding to the Hubble radius, and the peak amplitude agrees with the estimate based on Eq. (3.1).
However, the shape of the spectrum at f > fpeak differs from that in the real scalar field model,
and it slightly changes according to the value of N . This N dependence might be caused by the
fact that many configurations whose sizes are smaller than the Hubble radius are produced in the
model with large N , which results in the enhancement of the amplitude of GWs at high frequencies.

4 Particle physics models

In the previous section, we have shown that the amplitude of GWs is determined by two parameters,
the tension of the domain wall σ and the temperature at the domain wall annihilation Tann . The
latter is related to the energy bias Vbias for quasi-degenerate vacua [see Eq. (2.28)]. The values of
σ and Vbias depend on underlying particle physics models, and hence the prediction for the peak
amplitude and its frequency differs according to the details of the models. In this section, we
briefly review various particle physics models proposed in the literature that predict the formation
of unstable domain walls and the production of GWs from them.

13
4.1 Standard Model Higgs field
Intriguingly, there is a possibility that the dynamics of the SM Higgs field induces the formation
of unstable domain walls, which can produce a significant amount of GWs [64]. According to the
recent analysis of the effective potential of the Higgs field based on the measured values of the
Higgs boson mass and the top quark mass, our electroweak vacuum is likely to be metastable in the
framework of the SM [65, 66]. Indeed, the solution of the renormalization group equation for the
Higgs self coupling implies that it becomes negative at some energy scale Λ, which is much higher
than the electroweak scale. It is probable that there exists some new physics around that scale,
which lifts the Higgs potential. If this is the case, the effective potential of the Higgs field can have
two minima, which leads to the formation of Higgs domain walls in the early universe.
The effect of new physics can be modeled by introducing a higher dimensional operator in the
Higgs potential,
1 ϕ6
V (ϕ) = λ(ϕ)ϕ4 + 2 , (4.1)
4 Λ
where ϕ represents the SM Higgs field value, and λ(ϕ) is the field-dependent Higgs self coupling
obtained by solving the renormalization group equation and treating the Higgs field value as the
renormalization scale, λ(µ) = λ(ϕ). Here we ignore the quadratic term which leads to the elec-
troweak vacuum, since its effect on the dynamics of the Higgs field is negligible at high energies.
The instability scale Λ is sensitive to the top quark mass, and it can take a value from 1010 GeV
to the Planck scale within the error of the measured top quark mass. Up to the detailed values of
Λ and the self coupling, the Higgs potential can have two minima, one of which is our electroweak
vacuum, and the other one is at a higher energy scale ϕ = ϕf determined by minimizing Eq. (4.1).
Furthermore, one can consider the possibility that the high-scale minimum ϕf is just a local min-
imum, and that two minima are quasi-degenerate, i.e., the energy difference Vbias between two
minima is much smaller than the height of the potential energy V0 separating them (see Figure 1).
Let us assume that the Higgs potential has quasi-degenerate minima as described above. If the
inflationary scale is sufficiently high, the Higgs field acquires large quantum fluctuations during
inflation. After inflation, the Higgs field takes different values in different patches of the universe,
which results in the formation of domain walls. These domain walls are annihilated when the effect
of the energy bias Vbias becomes relevant, and subsequently the electroweak minimum dominates
the universe. The tension of the domain wall can be estimated as [64]
!
ϕ2f 1/2
σ∼ + V0 δ ∼ V0 ϕf , (4.2)
δ2

1/2
where the width of the domain wall δ ∼ ϕf /V0 can be fixed by minimizing the tension.
The precise values of ϕf , V0 , and Vbias should be obtained by solving detailed renormalization
group equations, and they depend on the values of various parameters in the SM such as the top
quark mass, the strong gauge coupling, and the Higgs boson mass. In Ref. [64], the magnitude of
the energy bias Vbias was treated as a free parameter as it can be adjusted by tuning the value of
Λ, and it was shown that there exists a parameter region in which a significant amount of GWs
is produced by long-lived domain walls. The typical peak frequency reads fpeak ∼ 10−3 –102 Hz,
which is relevant to future direct detection experiments. The peak frequency cannot be lower than
this range, since a smaller value of ϕf is required, which cannot be realized in this framework.
The production of GWs from Higgs domain walls was also investigated in Ref. [67]. Contrary to
the above discussions, it was concluded that the amplitude of GWs is too small to be observed in the
planned detectors. However, it should be noted that the scenario considered in Ref. [67] is different
from the above scenario in the sense that the high-scale minimum is located at a superplanckian

14
value and that two minima are non-degenerate. In such a case, domain walls do not enter into the
scaling regime and collapse soon after the formation, leading to the small amplitude of relic GWs.

4.2 Axion models

The axion [68,69] appears in the extensions of the SM with the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) mechanism [70,
71], which has been proposed as a solution to the strong CP problem of quantum chromodynamics
(QCD). It arises as a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson when a hypothetical global U(1) symmetry
(called the PQ symmetry) is spontaneously broken. Its interaction with other particles is suppressed
by a large decay constant F ∼ O(109 –1011 ) GeV, and hence it is regarded as one of the best
motivated candidates of cold dark matter [72–74]. Furthermore, string theory suggests the existence
of many axion-like particles (ALPs) [75, 76]. For more comprehensive reviews, see Refs. [77–80].
The crucial feature of the axion models is that they predict the formation of domain walls if the
PQ symmetry is restored and broken after inflation [81]. The global U(1) PQ symmetry is explicitly
broken to its subgroup ZN due to topological charge fluctuations in the QCD vacuum [82, 83], and
the effective potential for the axion field a at low energies is described by that in Eq. (2.7), where
the axion mass is given by m ∼ Fπ mπ /F ∼ 6 µeV (1012 GeV/F ), Fπ ≃ 92 MeV is the pion decay
constant, mπ ≃ 135 MeV is the pion mass, and F = v/N is the axion decay constant. In the early
universe, first the line-like objects, called global strings, are formed due to the spontaneous breaking
of the U(1) PQ symmetry when the temperature of the universe becomes T ∼ v. Subsequently,
domain walls are formed around the epoch of QCD phase transition. At that time strings are
attached by N domain walls, and the hybrid networks of strings and domain walls, called string-
wall systems are formed.7 The tension of axionic domain walls is given by Eq. (2.10),

σ ≈ 8mF 2 , (4.3)

where the approximation implies that there would be some finite corrections in the zero-temperature
effective potential [83, 86], which we ignore for simplicity.
The evolution of string-wall systems differs according to the number of degenerate minima N .
If N = 1, the systems collapse soon after the formation due to the tension of domain walls [87], and
the present energy density of GWs produced from them is too small to observe. On the other hand,
they are stable if N > 1, and we need to introduce explicit symmetry breaking terms in order
to guarantee that they are annihilated before they overclose the universe [56, 81]. For instance,
Planck-suppressed higher dimensional operators can induce sufficiently small energy bias between
N degenerate minima. It should be noted that such Planck-suppressed operators induce a large
CP-violating effect which spoils the original PQ solution to the strong CP problem [88–93], and
that the dimension of those operators must be sufficiently high in order to avoid the experimental
limit on the CP violation [94]. These kinds of higher dimensional operators naturally arise if we
assume that the PQ symmetry is an accidental symmetry of an exact discrete symmetry [95–97].
In Ref. [98], it was argued that the long-lived domain walls in the axion models with N > 1 can
produce a significant amount of GWs with the peak frequency fpeak ∼ 10−11 Hz. However, it
turned out that such a parameter region is excluded since the abundance of cold axions produced
by long-lived domain walls exceeds the observed cold dark matter abundance [47, 48]. There still
7
In some exceptional cases, domain walls may be formed even if strings do not exist. For instance, if the initial
value of the axion field is tuned to the location which is very close to the top of the cosine potential (2.7) and
its fluctuations are sufficiently large, domain walls without strings can be formed around the time of QCD phase
transition. Domain walls without strings can also be formed due to the level crossing between the axion and an
ALP [84, 85], if there exists an ALP whose mass is comparable to the axion mass around the epoch of QCD phase
transition.

15
remains some parameter region which avoids all observational constraints, and in such a region the
predicted amplitude of GWs is very small, Ωgw h2 . 10−20 [47].
A similar argument can be applied to the models with ALPs, but in such models the ALP mass
is not necessarily related to its decay constant. Therefore, one can treat them as two independent
parameters in low energy phenomenology. In particular, if there exist some couplings between ALPs
and SM particles and the ALP mass is sufficiently large, it is possible to avoid the dark matter
overclosure bound, since ALPs produced by long-lived domain walls can decay into radiations. In
Ref. [99], it was pointed out that domain walls in the ALP models can produce baryon asymmetry
of the universe as well as GWs. A very high peak frequency fpeak ∼ O(100) kHz is predicted in this
scenario, since the temperature at the domain wall annihilation must be high, Tann & 1011 GeV, in
order to generate sufficiently large baryon asymmetry.
The formation of domain walls and the production of GWs are also predicted in the context
of the aligned axion models [100–102], which have been built explicitly by applying the clockwork
mechanism discussed in Ref. [103]. In the aligned axion models, the axion a is described in terms
of the flat direction of plural axion-like fields φi (i = 1, . . . , Nax ), where Nax is the total number of
the axion-like fields. A large decay constant F for the axion can be realized even though the actual
decay constants Fi for Nax axion-like fields are much smaller than F . Since the symmetry breaking
scales Fi are much smaller than the usual PQ scale F ∼ O(109 –1011 ) GeV, the CP violating effects
from Planck suppressed operators remain small, which naturally explains the high quality of the
PQ symmetry.
As an explicit ultraviolet completion of the aligned axion model, one can consider a model
based on Nax complex scalar fields associated with Nax global U(1) symmetries. It is assumed that
(Nax − 1) U(1) symmetries are explicitly broken due to the operators proportional to some small
√
parameters ǫi ≪ 1. (Nax − 1) ALPs have masses mi ∼ O( ǫi Fi ) because of the existence of the
explicit symmetry breaking terms, while the other acquires a mass only due to the QCD effect. In
the early universe, Nax U(1) symmetries are spontaneously broken when the temperature of the
universe becomes T . Fi , and strings are formed at that epoch. Subsequently, domain walls with
√
the tension σ = 8mi Fi2 are formed when the Hubble parameter becomes H ∼ mi ∼ ǫi Fi .8 These
domain walls are annihilated around the time of the QCD phase transition, since the potential
induced by topological charge fluctuations in the QCD vacuum acts as the energy bias among
different domains, Vbias ∼ Λ4QCD , where ΛQCD ≃ O(100) MeV is the QCD scale. This fact implies
that Tann ∼ 1 GeV, and hence the spectrum of GWs produced by domain walls has a peak at
fpeak ∼ O(10−7 ) Hz. Based on this fact, it was shown that the present pulser timing observation
leads to an upper bound on the fundamental decay constant, Fi . O(100) TeV [101].

4.3 Supersymmetric models

The rich structure of supersymmetric theories gives rise to various possibilities of the formation
of domain walls in the early universe. In Refs. [104, 105], the formation of domain walls and the
production of GWs in the context of the spontaneous breaking of discrete R symmetries were
discussed. Let us assume that there exist some hidden SU(Nc ) gauge interactions in addition to
those in the SM. In the supersymmetric extensions of gauge theories, there exist fermionic partners
of gauge bosons, called gauginos. Such gauginos may settle down in a condensate in the early
universe due to the corresponding strong gauge forces. Topological charge fluctuations associated
8
String-wall systems may eventually collapse into a single string bundle, since the vacuum may not be disconnected
along the direction of the unbroken U(1). However, such a collapse is not likely to occur if Nax is large and ǫi is
sufficiently small, since in this case strings obey the scaling solution, i.e., the number of strings per horizon remains
O(1), before the formation of domain walls and the size of the hybrid object, which evolves toward the bundle and
contains exponentially large number of strings, is far outside the horizon [101].

16
with such gauge forces break the global U(1) R symmetry of the theory down to its discrete
subgroup Z2Nc , and this Z2Nc symmetry is spontaneously broken further down to the Z2 subgroup
due to the gaugino condensation (see e.g. Ref. [106]). It is known that the effective potential has
Nc degenerate vacua after the gaugino condensation, and domain walls with the tension

σ ∼ Λ3c (4.4)

are formed around that time [107,108], where Λc represents the scale at which the gauge interactions
become strong.
In order to avoid the cosmological domain wall problem, it is necessary to introduce a term that
induces the energy bias between degenerate vacua. Such a energy bias is obtained if we assume
that there exists a constant term w0 in the superpotential, which explicitly breaks the discrete Z2Nc
symmetry. Note that the magnitude of the constant term should be w0 ∼ m3/2 MPl 2 in order to cancel

the positive contribution to the cosmological constant associated with supersymmetry breaking
effects, where m3/2 is the mass of gravitinos. This constant term results in the energy bias in the
effective potential, Vbias ∼ w0 Λ3c /MPl
2 ∼ m 3
3/2 Λc . From Eq. (2.27), we see that the annihilation of
domain walls occurs when the Hubble parameter becomes comparable to the gravitino mass,
Vbias
H(Tann ) ∼ ∼ m3/2 . (4.5)
σ
This result implies that there is a possibility to probe the gravitino mass from the observation of
GWs [104]. For instance, if the domain wall annihilation occurs during the radiation dominated
era, the peak frequency is given by fpeak ∼ 103 Hz (m3/2 /1 TeV)1/2 .
The formation of domain walls is also predicted in the next-to-minimal supersymmetric SM
(NMSSM). The NMSSM is a possible extension of the minimal supersymmetric SM (MSSM), in
which an additional gauge singlet superfield is introduced in order to provide a solution to the
µ-problem [109] of the MSSM. Here, µ is a dimensionful parameter appearing in the superpotential
of the MSSM, µHu Hd with Hu and Hd being two Higgs doublet superfields, and its magnitude
should be of the order of the soft supersymmetry breaking scale rather than the natural cutoff scale
such as the Planck scale. In the NMSSM, a discrete Z3 symmetry is imposed in order to forbid all
dimensionful quantities in the superpotential, and the µ term with the appropriate magnitude is
induced due to the dynamics of the scalar component S of the singlet superfield, see Refs. [110,111]
for reviews.
The Z3 symmetry is spontaneously broken when the S field acquires expectation values, and
domain walls are formed around that time. The tension of domain walls depends on various
parameters including the singlet-Higgs couplings and soft supersymmetry breaking parameters,
but typically σ 1/3 ∼ O(TeV) if the singlet-Higgs couplings are relatively large. On the other hand,
in the decoupling limit where the singlet-Higgs couplings become much smaller than unity, the
tension can take much larger values [112],

σ ∼ κhSi3 ≫ O(m3soft ), (4.6)

where κ is a dimensionless coupling appearing in the superpotential, W ⊃ (1/3)κS 3 , hSi ∼ msoft /κ

is the VEV of the singlet scalar, and msoft represents the soft supersymmetry breaking mass scale.
Due to the large tension, the amplitude of GWs produced from domain walls can be enhanced
accordingly.
It was argued that the domain wall problem in the NMSSM cannot be solved just by introducing
Planck-suppressed operators which provide the energy bias among different vacua [113], since such
interactions radiatively induce a large tadpole operator that destabilizes the VEV of the singlet

17
field. One possible solution is to impose various additional symmetries to arrange the form of
Planck-suppressed interactions such that the scalar potential only contains a small bias term,
Vbias ∼ ζm3soft S + h.c., where ζ is a loop suppression factor [114]. Another possibility is to assume
that the Z3 symmetry is anomalous for QCD or some hidden strong gauge interactions [115]. In
this case, the energy bias is given by Vbias ∼ Λ4s , where Λs is the scale at which the corresponding
gauge interactions become strong. In any case domain walls must be annihilated before the epoch
of BBN, since their decay products would destroy light elements [see Eq. (2.32)]. This fact implies
that the peak frequency of GWs produced from domain walls should be higher than fpeak ∼
10−9 Hz. Assuming that the domain wall annihilation occurs just before BBN, one can constrain
the parameters of the NMSSM in the decoupling limit from pulsar timing observations [112].
In Ref. [116], the production of GWs from domain walls formed after thermal inflation was
discussed. Thermal inflation [117,118] is introduced in order to suppress the abundance of harmful
light long-lived scalar fields, called moduli, appearing in the context of string cosmology [119, 120].
In this model, a short period of inflation is driven by the potential energy of a scalar field called
flaton, which is trapped at the origin of the scalar potential because of thermal effects. A discrete
Zn symmetry is imposed in order to guarantee the flatness of the flaton potential, where n is an
integer satisfying n ≥ 4. After thermal inflation, the thermal effects become irrelevant and the
flaton acquires non-zero VEVs, which break Zn symmetry and lead to the formation of domain
walls. The domain walls can be annihilated if we introduce an additional term that explicitly breaks
Zn symmetry [121, 122] or if we assume that the Zn symmetry is anomalous for QCD [55, 116]. It
was shown that such domain walls can produce a significant amount of GWs if their lifetime is
sufficiently long, and the peak frequency typically lies in the range of 10−6 –10−3 Hz [116].

5 Implications for present and future observations

In this section, we discuss implications of GWs from domain walls for ongoing and planned exper-
imental searches. Here we marginalize the model-dependences described in the previous section,
and treat σ and Tann as free parameters to clarify the parameter region that is relevant to present
and future observations.
The leading ground-based interferometer is Advanced LIGO [123], whose first observing run
placed limits on the amplitude of the stochastic GW background Ωgw < 1.7 × 10−7 with 95%
confidences for 20–86 Hz by assuming a flat GW spectrum [124], and these limits are about 33
times tighter than the previous limits set by Initial LIGO and Virgo [125]. In addition to them,
ground-based interferometer KAGRA [126] will soon start to run in Japan. In Europe, the more
advanced ground-based observatory, Einstein Telescope (ET) [127], is planned with the aim of
achieving further improvement in sensitivity. Space-borne interferometers such as eLISA [128, 129]
and DECIGO [130] are planned to be launched in the future, and they will enable us to explore
lower frequency ranges, which cannot be probed in the ground-based experiments. Much lower
frequencies ∼ 10−9 –10−8 Hz are probed by using the pulsar timing array (PTA). Recently, European
Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) set a limit on the amplitude of a flat stochastic GW background
Ωgw h2 < 1.2 × 10−9 at a reference frequency of f = 1yr−1 [131], and it is about one order of
magnitude tighter than that obtained in previous PTA searches [132–134]. The sensitivity will be
improved in future PTA projects such as SKA [135] and FAST [136].
Sensitivities of various ongoing and planned experiments are summarized in Figure 3. For the
sensitivities of Advanced LIGO, we plot the constraint on arbitrary power spectra (“Advanced
LIGO O1”) and the design sensitivity with the assumption of two years observations in Advanced
LIGO and Virgo (“Advanced LIGO design”) reported in Ref. [124]. These lines imply that GW
signals above (below) them correspond to SNR ≥ 2 (SNR ≤ 2). For other interferometers, we

18
assume one year cross-correlation searches and plot the lines with SNR = 2. The sensitivity curve
for ET is produced by using a fitting function in [137]. The sensitivity of eLISA depends on the
detailed detector configurations, and here we assume the C1 configuration, whose parameters are
specified in Refs. [128, 129]. For instrumental noises of DECIGO and Ultimate DECIGO, we used
the parameters specified in Ref. [138]. It should be noted that GWs produced from white-dwarf
(WD) binaries may lead to a significant confusion noise, which decreases sensitivities at lower
frequencies of f . 0.1 Hz. In Figure 3, we adopt the fitting formula for the WD confusion noise
specified in Refs. [139, 140] in addition to instrumental noises of DECIGO and Ultimate DECIGO.
The sensitivities of EPTA and SKA are taken from [141, 142].

Figure 3: The schematics of the sensitivities of present/future GW experiments and GW signatures

from domain walls. Solid lines represent the present upper limits on the GW background obtained
by EPTA (red) and Advanced LIGO O1 (blue). Dashed lines represent the sensitivities of future
experiments including SKA (orange), eLISA (green), DECIGO (cyan), Ultimate DECIGO (gray),
Advanced LIGO design (blue), and ET (purple). The sensitivity curves for DECIGO and Ultimate
DECIGO contain both the instrumental noise and the WD confusion noise. Light colored regions
represent typical spectra of GWs from domain walls for σ 1/3 = 105 GeV and Tann = 0.1 GeV (light
red), σ 1/3 = 109 GeV and Tann = 104 GeV (light green), and σ 1/3 = 1011 GeV and Tann = 108 GeV
(light blue).

In Figure 3, we also plot the GW signatures from cosmic domain walls for three choices of
parameters. In these plots, we used Eqs. (3.9) and (3.10) to estimate the peak amplitude and
frequency. The spectra are extrapolated based on the frequency dependences implied by the results
of numerical simulations, Ωgw ∝ f 3 for f < fpeak and Ωgw ∝ f −1 for f > fpeak . We see that
sufficiently large GW signatures are predicted according to the values of σ and Tann .
Following Ref. [61], in Figure 4 we specify the parameter region of Tann and σ 1/3 relevant to
observations. The colored regions in Figure 4 correspond to the parameter values for which the peak
amplitude of GWs from domain walls [Eq. (3.9)] exceeds the sensitivity curves plotted in Figure 3.
In Figure 4, we also plot the parameter region denoted by “Wall domination”, which corresponds
to the potential uncertainties since the energy density of domain walls dominates the total energy
density of the universe [see Eq. (2.30)]. Furthermore, the large scale domain walls cannot be formed
if the condition shown in Eq. (2.26) is not satisfied. Combining Eqs. (2.26) and (2.28), we obtain

19
the following condition,
!−3/2  1/2
σ 1/3
 −1/4
4 g∗ (Tann ) V0
Tann < 3.04 × 10 GeV Cann A
−1/2 −1/2
. (5.1)
10 GeV GeV4

Up to the value of V0 , this condition gives an upper limit on Tann . Here we take V0 = σ 4/3 as
a typical estimate of the height of the potential barrier.9 The corresponding parameter region is
denoted by “No domain walls” and shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Sensitivities of present/future GW experiments in the parameter space of Tann and σ 1/3 .
In the colored regions, the peak amplitude of GWs from domain walls estimated based on Eq. (3.9)
exceeds the sensitivity curves plotted in Figure 3. Gray regions correspond to the parameter space
in which domain walls overclose the universe [not satisfying Eq. (2.30)] or they are not formed since
the energy bias is too large [not satisfying Eq. (5.1) with V0 = σ 4/3 ]. The thin black lines represent
the contours for the peak amplitude of GWs from domain walls, Ωgw h2peak = 10−8 (solid), 10−14
(dashed), and 10−20 (dot-dashed). The dashed magenta lines represent the contours for the peak
frequency with fpeak = 10−8 Hz, 10−5 Hz, 10−2 Hz, and 10 Hz.

Both in Figure 3 and in Figure 4, we have assumed that the annihilation of domain walls occurs
during the radiation dominated era. If it occurs before reheating, the amplitude and frequency of
GWs are modified according to the value of the reheating temperature [see Eqs. (3.14) and (3.15)].
From Figure 4, we see that the significantly large GW amplitude is predicted if the energy
density of domain walls is close to dominate the total energy density of the universe. It should
be noted that recent observational results by EPTA and Advanced LIGO already exclude some
parameter spaces. Future observations with improved sensitivities are expected to probe much
wider ranges of the parameter space, and from such observations we will obtain richer information
about high energy physics beyond the SM.
9
From Eq. (2.11), we see that the choice V0 = σ 4/3 corresponds to δ −1 ∼ σ 1/3 , which is satisfied in the toy model
given by Eqs. (2.1) and (2.2) if λ ≃ O(1). We also note that the condition (2.26) is always satisfied for domain
walls in axion models [Eq. (2.7)], since Eqs. (2.9), (2.11), (2.26), and (2.27) imply m & Hann , which holds after the
formation of domain walls.

20
6 Conclusion
Various well-motivated particle physics models predict the formation of unstable domain walls
in the early universe, and it is possible to probe such models by observing GWs produced by
them. The signatures of GWs can be characterized by two quantities, the tension of domain
walls σ and the temperature at the annihilation of them Tann . Values of these parameters depend
on the details of models, and they range over many orders of magnitude. Accordingly, future
broadband observations of GWs including PTA, ground-based, and space-borne interferometers
will allow us to explore new physics at various energy scales, some of which cannot be reached in
the conventional laboratory experiments. Assuming that the annihilation of domain walls occurs
during the radiation dominated era, we have shown that the ranges of 10−2 GeV . Tann . 109 GeV
and 103 GeV . σ 1/3 . 1012 GeV can be covered by future experiments.
So far we have estimated the spectrum of GWs from domain walls based on a naive extrapolation
of the results obtained in the field theoretic lattice simulations. However, it is difficult to estimate
the spectrum of GWs accurately over broad frequency ranges due to the limitation of the dynamical
ranges of the simulations. In order to resolve this difficulty, it will be necessary to develop some
alternative method to compute the spectrum of GWs analytically. Such an approach would enable
us to estimate the signatures of GWs more quantitatively, and it can be used to distinguish the
signal of domain walls from that of other sources. Furthermore, the results of numerical simulations
of domain walls associated with ZN symmetric models imply that the shape of the spectrum slightly
differs depending on the value of N [47]. The N -dependent feature in the spectrum of GWs might
be regarded as an additional information to distinguish different models, and it deserves further
investigation.
The search for cosmological GWs would have a great impact on high energy physics and cosmol-
ogy. The collapse of domain walls will provide a possible way to interpret the results of forthcoming
GW experiments. Even if there is no evidence of a signal, such information can be used to constrain
various particle physics models beyond the SM.

Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Takashi Hiramatsu, Kenji Kadota, Masahiro Kawasaki, and
Toyokazu Sekiguchi for the collaborations on the topics in this review.

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