Domain Walls in QCD

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  • 13 June 2001
Abstract
QCD was shown to have a nontrivial vacuum structure due to the topology of the theta=theta+2*pi*n parameter. As a result of this nontrivial topology, in the large Nc limit, quasi-stable QCD domain walls appear, characterized by a transition in the singlet eta-prime field. We discuss the physics of these QCD domain walls as well as related axion domain walls and we present a new type of axion wall which also contains an eta-prime transition. These domain walls are absolutely stable in the limit Nc -> infinity and classically stable for large Nc, but can decay through a tunneling process. We argue that the qualitative features of these QCD domain walls---namely their classical stability---persist to the realistic case of Nc=3 and that it is at least possible that their lifetime could be macroscopically large. If it is, then QCD domain walls could play an important role in the evolution of early universe and may be detectable in energetic collisions such as those at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).

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