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Lifetime of a massive particle in a de Sitter universe

High Energy Physics - Theory 2008-11-26 v2

Abstract

We study particle decay in de Sitter space-time as given by first order perturbation theory in an interacting quantum field theory. We show that for fields with masses above a critical mass mcm_c there is no such thing as particle stability, so that decays forbidden in flat space-time do occur there. The lifetime of such a particle also turns out to be independent of its velocity when that lifetime is comparable with de Sitter radius. Particles with lower mass are even stranger: The masses of their decay products must obey quantification rules, and their lifetime is zero.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/0612184,
  title  = {Lifetime of a massive particle in a de Sitter universe},
  author = {Jacques Bros and Henri Epstein and Ugo Moschella},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0612184},
  year   = {2008}
}

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4 pages