Detecting Dark Domain Walls

TL;DR

This paper proposes a laboratory experiment to detect dark domain walls formed by light scalar fields, which could have implications for understanding dark energy, dark matter, and gravitational waves.

Contribution

It introduces a method to detect scalar field domain walls in the lab by analyzing their effects on test particles, expanding the search for these phenomena.

Findings

Detectable signatures of domain walls in current parameter space

Scalar field profiles can be solved analytically for experimental detection

Potential to explain dark energy, dark matter, and gravitational-wave background

Abstract

Light scalar fields, with double well potentials and direct matter couplings, undergo density driven phase transitions, leading to the formation of domain walls. Such theories could explain dark energy, dark matter or source the nanoHz gravitational-wave background. We describe an experiment that could be used to detect such domain walls in a laboratory experiment, solving for the scalar field profile, and showing how the domain wall affects the motion of a test particle. We find that, in currently unconstrained regions of parameter space, the domain walls leave detectable signatures.