Implications for cosmic domain walls from the first three observing runs of LIGO-Virgo

Abstract

We put constraints on the normalized energy density in gravitational waves from cosmic domain walls by searching for the stochastic gravitational-wave background in the data of Advanced LIGO and Virgo's first three observing runs. By adopting a phenomenological broken power-law model, we obtain the upper limit on the amplitude of stochastic gravitational-wave background generated by domain walls in the peak frequency band 10--200 Hz and get the most stringent limitation ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}}_{\mathrm{DW}}({f}_{*}=35\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{Hz})<1.4\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}$ at 95% confidence level at the peak frequency ${f}_{*}=35\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{Hz}$. Subsequently, we work out the constraints on the parameter space in the appealing realization of DW structure---the heavy axion model which can avoid the so-called quality problem.