Domain Walls in Strongly Coupled Theories

Domain walls in strongly coupled gauge theories are discussed. A general mechanism is suggested automatically leading to massless gauge bosons localized on the wall. In one of the models considered, outside the wall the theory is in the nonAbelian confining phase, while inside the wall it is in the Abelian Coulomb phase. Confining property of the non-Abelian theories is a key ingredient of the mechanism which may be of practical use in the context of the dynamic compactification scenarios. In supersymmetric (N = 1) Yang-Mills theories the energy density of the wall can be exactly calculated in the strong coupling regime. This calculation presents a further example of non-trivial physical quantities that can be found exactly by exploiting specific properties of supersymmetry. A key observation is the fact that the wall in this theory is a BPS-saturated state. CERN–TH/96–356 December 1996 † Permanent address.