Cosmic bubble and domain wall instabilities III: the role of oscillons in three-dimensional bubble collisions

We study collisions between pairs of bubbles nucleated in an ambient false vacuum. For the first time, we include the effects of small initial (quantum) fluctuations around the instanton pro les describing the most likely initial bubble pro le. Past studies of this problem neglect these fluctuations and work under the assumption that the collisions posess an exact SO(2,1) symmetry. We use three-dimensional lattice simulations to demonstrate that for double-well potentials, small initial perturbations to this symmetry can be ampli ed as the system evolves. Initially the ampli cation is well-described by linear perturbation theory around the SO(2,1) background, but the onset of strong nonlinearities amongst the fluctuations quickly leads to a drastic breaking of the original SO(2,1) symmetry and the production of oscillons in the collision region. We explore several single- field models, and we find it is hard to both realize in ation inside of a bubble and produce oscillons in a collision. Finally, we extend our results to a simple two- field model. The additional freedom allowed by the second field allows us to construct viable in ationary models that allow oscillon production in collisions. The breaking of the SO(2,1) symmetry allows for a new class of observational signatures from bubble collisions that do not posess azimuthal symmetry, including the production of gravitational waves which cannot be supported by an SO(2,1) spacetime