Domain Walls from Inflation: From Birefringence to Dark Matter and Primordial Black Holes

by Ricardo Ferreira

Thursday 28 May 2026, 13:30 → 14:30 Europe/Zurich

4/2-037 - TH meeting room (CERN)

In this talk, I will discuss how stochastic effects during inflation can naturally give rise to a frozen, nested network of domain walls after inflation. I will then describe the associated phenomenology, ranging from an isotropic cosmic birefringence signal in the CMB to the production of dark matter and a broad spectrum of primordial black holes, and highlight the implications for the minimal QCD axion scenario.