Speaker
Description
The gauge “slingshot” effect occurs when a source, such as a quark or a magnetic monopole, crosses the boundary between the Coulomb and confining phases during a first-order phase transition. The corresponding gauge field of the source, either electric or magnetic, gets confined into a flux tube stretching in the form of a string (cosmic or a QCD type) that attaches the source to the domain wall, separating the two phases. The string tension accelerates the source toward the wall as a slingshot. Various sources of other dimensionality also exhibit the slingshot phenomenon, such as cosmic strings confined by domain walls or vortices confined by $𝑍_2$ strings. Apart from the field-theoretic value, the slingshot effect has important cosmological implications, as it provides a distinct source for gravitational waves. The effect is expected to be generic in various standard model extensions, such as grand unification.
