Gravitational effects on critical Q-balls

Abstract

In a cosmological phase transition in theories that admit Q-balls there is a value of the soliton charge above which the soliton becomes unstable and expands, converting space to the true vacuum, much like a critical bubble in the case of ordinary tunneling. Here I consider the effects of gravity on these solitons and I calculate the lowest gravitational corrections to the critical radius and charge.

Comments: LaTeX, 8 pages, final version to appear in EPL