Related papers: The spontaneous breaking of a metastable string
We study the thermal breakage of a discrete one-dimensional string, with open and fixed ends, in the heavily damped regime. Basing our analysis on the multidimensional Kramers escape theory, we are able to make analytical predictions on the…
We discuss the origin of the leg factors appearing in 2D string theory. Computing in the world sheet framework we use the semiclassical method to study string amplitudes at high energy. We show that in the case of a simplest 2-point…
String breaking is a fundamental concept in gauge theories, describing the decay of a flux string connecting two charges through the production of particle-antiparticle pairs. This phenomenon is particularly important in particle physics,…
We present a recursive quantum mechanical model for the fragmentation of a string stretched between a quark and an antiquark with entangled spin states. The quarks are assumed to be produced in the $e^+e^-$ annihilation process via the…
The breaking rate of an atomic chain stretched at zero temperature by a constant force can be calculated in a quasiclassical approximation by finding the localized solutions ("bounces") of the equations of classical dynamics in imaginary…
Metastable decay exhibits a familiar exponential regime bracketed by early-time deviations and late-time power-law tails. We adopt the real-time, flux-based definition of the decay rate in the spirit of Andreassen et al.\ direct method and…
We study the depinning transitions of elastic strings in disordered media in two different cases. We consider the elastic forces to be of infinite range in one case, where the magnitude is proportional to the extension of the string. The…
Confinement prohibits isolation of color charges, e.g., quarks, in nature via a process called string breaking: the separation of two charges results in an increase in the energy of a color flux, visualized as a string, connecting those…
Metastable phases may be spontaneously formed from other metastable phases through nucleation. Here we demonstrate the spontaneous formation of a metastable phase from an unstable equilibrium by spinodal decomposition, which leads to a…
Based on the general form of the master equation for open quantum systems the tunneling is considered. Using the path integral technique a simple closed form expression for the tunneling rate through a parabolic barrier is obtained. The…
We consider formation of composite strings and domain walls as a result of fusion of two elementary objects (elementary strings in the first case and elementary walls in the second) located at a distance from each other. The tension of the…
A state of an electron in a quantum wire or a thin film becomes metastable, when a static electric field is applied perpendicular to the wire direction or the film surface. The state decays via tunneling through the created potential…
A system of a metastable phase with several sorts of heterogeneous centers is considered. An analytical theory for the process of decay in such a system has been constructed. The free energy of formation of a critical embryo is assumed to…
We study {2Q+1}-strings connecting two static charges Q in (2+1)-d SU(2) Yang-Mills theory. While the fundamental {2}-string between two charges Q = 1/2 is unbreakable, the adjoint {3}-string connecting two charges Q = 1 can break. When a…
The perturbative theory of the nucleation kinetics is analyzed. A new improvement is suggested and compared with numerical calculations.
We calculate the decay rate for a state prepared in a thermal density matrix centered on a metastable ground state. We find a rate that is intrinsically time {\it dependent}, as opposed to the {\it constant} rates of previous works. The…
We study the evolution of an elastic string into the pinned state at driving forces slightly below the depinning threshold force $F_c$. We quantify the temporal evolution of the string by an {\it activity function} $A(t)$ representing the…
We present a model for string breaking based on the existence of chromoelectric flux tubes. We predict the form of the long-range potential, and obtain an estimate of the string breaking length. A prediction is also obtained for the…
A system of a metastable phase with several sorts of heterogeneous centers is considered. An analytical theory for the process of decay in such a system has been constructed. The free energy of formation of a critical embryo is assumed to…
Mechanically active cells in soft media act as force dipoles. The resulting elastic interactions are long-ranged and favor the formation of strings. We show analytically that due to screening, the effective interaction between strings…