Speaker : Peter Hayman,
University of Auckland
Abstract :
At this point we're all experts on linear systems, but fortunately the real world is highly non-linear. While the vast expanse of non-linear systems is still virtually unexplored, we have already met some exotic non-perturbative creatures like solitons, instantons, and Q-balls. Our research program will eventually numerically explore in detail the impact one such creature---oscillons---may have on cosmology. Oscillons are long-lived but ultimately unstable lumps found in, among other places, self-interacting scalar fields such as the hypothetical inflaton field (supposed to drive cosmological inflation). Here I will mostly review what is known about oscillons, but also touch on the code we will use to study them, and how we specifically avoided them in a recent simulation.