A New Semiclassical Picture of Vacuum Decay
High Energy Physics - Theory
2019-07-24 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract
We introduce a new picture of vacuum decay which, in contrast to existing semiclassical techniques, provides a real-time description and does not rely on classically-forbidden tunneling paths. Using lattice simulations, we observe vacuum decay via bubble formation by generating realizations of vacuum fluctuations and evolving with the classical equations of motion. The decay rate obtained from an ensemble of simulations is in excellent agreement with existing techniques. Future applications include bubble correlation functions, fast decay rates, and decay of non-vacuum states.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1806.06069,
title = {A New Semiclassical Picture of Vacuum Decay},
author = {Jonathan Braden and Matthew C. Johnson and Hiranya V. Peiris and Andrew Pontzen and Silke Weinfurtner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.06069},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
v2: supplemental material added, accepted to PRL. v1: 5 pages