Vector-Field Domain Walls

Abstract

We argue that spontaneous Lorentz violation may generally lead to metastable domain walls related to the simultaneous violation of some accompanying discrete symmetries. Remarkably, such domain wall solutions exist for space-like Lorentz violation and do not exist for the time-like violation. Because a preferred space direction is spontaneously induced, these domain walls have no planar symmetry and produce a peculiar static gravitational field at small distances, while their long-distance gravity appears the same as for regular scalar-field walls. Some possible applications of vector-field domain walls are briefly discussed.Comment: Published version, to appear in Physical Review