English

Vacuum Bubble in an Inhomogeneous Cosmology

High Energy Physics - Theory 2008-11-26 v2 Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

We study the propagation of bubbles of new vacuum in a radially inhomogeneous Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi background that includes a cosmological constant. This exemplifies the classical evolution of a tunneling bubble through a metastable state with curvature inhomogeneities, and will be relevant in the context of the Landscape. We demand that the matter profile in the LTB background satisfy the weak energy condition. For sample profiles that satisfy this restriction, we find that the evolution of the bubble (in terms of the physically relevant coordinates intrinsic to the shell) is largely unaffected by the prsence of local inhomogeneities. Our setup should also be a useful toy model for capturing the effects of ambient inhomogeneities on an inflating region.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0711.3417,
  title  = {Vacuum Bubble in an Inhomogeneous Cosmology},
  author = {Willy Fischler and Chethan Krishnan and Sonia Paban and Marija Zanic},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0711.3417},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

31 pages, 21(!) figures, v2: minor changes, figures re-sized (might require zoom on some systems), references added

R2 v1 2026-06-21T09:45:55.496Z