Asimulation: Domain formation and impact on observables in resolved cosmological simulations of the (a)symmetron

The symmetron is a dark energy and dark matter candidate that forms topological defects in the late-time universe and holds the promise of resolving some of the cosmological tensions. We performed high-resolution simulations of the dynamical and non-linear (a)symmetron using the recently developed relativistic N-body code asevolution. By extensively testing the temporal and spatial convergence of domain decompositioning and domain wall stability, we determined criteria and physical intuition for the convergence. We applied the resolution criteria to run five high-resolution simulations with 1280³ grids and a box size of 500 Mpc h⁻¹ of the (a)symmetron. We considered the behaviour of the scalar field and the domain walls in each scenario. We find the effect on the matter power spectra, the HMFs, and observables computed over the past light cone of an observer, such as the integrated Sachs-Wolfe and non-linear Rees-Sciama effect and the lensing, compared to ΛCDM. We show local oscillations of the fifth force strength and the formation of planar structures in the density field. The dynamics of the field was visualised in animations with high resolution in time. The simulation code is made publicly available.

Movies are available at https://www.aanda.org.