Charge-Swapping Q-balls and Their Lifetimes

TL;DR

This paper studies charge swapping Q-balls (CSQs), long-lived quasi-stable states in scalar field theories, analyzing their properties and lifetimes through numerical simulations in 2+1D and 3+1D.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of CSQ lifetimes, stages of evolution, and attractor behavior using advanced numerical methods.

Findings

CSQs exhibit four distinct evolutionary stages.

Lifetimes depend on initial conditions and potential parameters.

CSQs show attractor behavior during evolution.

Abstract

For scalar theories accommodating spherically symmetric Q-balls, there are also towers of quasi-stable composite Q-balls, called charge swapping Q-balls (CSQs). We investigate the properties, particularly the lifetimes, of these long-lived CSQs in 2+1D and 3+1D using numerical simulations with efficient second order absorbing boundary conditions. We find that the evolution of a CSQ typically consists of 4 distinct stages: initial relaxation, first plateau (CSQ stage), fast decay and second plateau (oscillon stage). We chart the lifetimes of CSQs for different parameters of the initial conditions and of the potential, and show the attractor behavior and other properties of the CSQs.