Optical effects of domain walls

Abstract

Domain walls arise in theories where there is spontaneous symmetry breaking of a discrete symmetry such as Z N and are a feature of many BSM models. In this work we consider the possibility of detecting domain walls through their optical effects and specify three different methods of coupling domain walls to the photon. We consider the effects of these couplings in the context of gravitational wave detectors, such as LIGO, and examine the sensitivity of these experiments to domain wall effects. In cases where gravitational wave detectors are not sensitive we examine our results in the context of axion experiments and show how effects of passing domain walls can be detected at interferometers searching for an axion signal.