English

Bounce solutions and the transition to thermal hopping in phi^4 theory with a phi^3 term

High Energy Physics - Theory 2009-10-31 v1

Abstract

The nature of the transition from quantum tunneling at low temperatures to thermal hopping at high temperatures is investigated in a scalar field theory with cubic symmetry breaking. The bounce solution which interpolates between the zero-temperature and high-temperature solutions is obtained numerically, using a multigrid method. It is found that, for a small value of the symmetry-breaking coupling f, the transition is first-order. For higher values of f, the transition continues to be first-order, though weakly so.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/9809010,
  title  = {Bounce solutions and the transition to thermal hopping in phi^4 theory with a phi^3 term},
  author = {Hatem Widyan and A. Mukherjee and N. Panchapakesan and R. P. Saxena},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9809010},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

Latex file with 18 figures, 29 pages