Speaker
Description
Particle physics scenarios with discrete symmetries can be probed by searching for their cosmological relics. When the symmetry is spontaneously broken in the early Universe, a network of topological defects (domain walls) is formed, that generically ends up making a large fraction of the energy budget of the Universe. While these defects are required to decay away before dominating, they are efficient sources of a stochastic gravitational wave (GW) background, that can be detected at interferometers and Pulsar Timing Arrays. In this talk, after introducing the general properties of domain wall networks and their possible formation mechanisms, we will review recent progress in the description of their evolution and in the characterization of their gravitational wave signal, as well as on the possibility to form primordial black holes.
