Gravitational effects in bubble collisions

Abstract

We investigate the effects of gravitation in the collision of two bubbles in the very early universe, using the thin-wall approximation. In general, the collision of two bubbles gives rise to modulus wall and a phase wave. The space-time metric and all physical quantities possess hyperbolic O(2,1) symmetry. We derive a generalized Birkhoff's theorem to show that the space-time in different regions must therefore be flat, de Sitter, pseudo-Schwarzschild, and pseudo-Schwarzschild-de Sitter, respectively. As in the spherically symmetric O(3) case, the space-time is Petrov type $D$, and so there is no gravitational radiation. Owing to the special symmetry of the space-time, the concentration of matter does not suffice to cause any gravitational collapse to a singularity no matter how severely the two bubbles collide. The modulus walls, viewed from the real vacuum region, eventually propagate outwards with kinks due to a series of collisions, in contrast to the situation in the absence of gravity.