English

Validity of the kink approximation to the tunneling action

High Energy Physics - Theory 2013-01-11 v2

Abstract

Coleman tunneling in a general scalar potential with two non-degenerate minima is known to have an approximation in terms of a piecewise linear triangular-shaped potential with sharp 'kinks' at the place of the local minima. This approximate potential has a regime where the existence of the bounce solution needs the scalar field to 'wait' for some amount of Euclidean time at one of the 'kinks'. We discuss under which conditions a kink approximation of locally smooth 'cap' regions provides a good estimate for the bounce action.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1202.2721,
  title  = {Validity of the kink approximation to the tunneling action},
  author = {Koushik Dutta and Cecelie Hector and Thomas Konstandin and Pascal M. Vaudrevange and Alexander Westphal},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1202.2721},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

7 pages, 4 figures, title changed in version 2 to match published version