Related papers: Dynamics of false vacuum bubbles: beyond the thin …
False vacuum decay in quantum mechanical first order phase transitions is a phenomenon with wide implications in cosmology, and presents interesting theoretical challenges. In the standard approach, it is assumed that false vacuum decay…
We study collisions between pairs of bubbles nucleated in an ambient false vacuum. For the first time, we include the effects of small initial (quantum) fluctuations around the instanton profiles describing the most likely initial bubble…
We study dynamical gravitational collapse in a theory with an infinite tower of higher-derivative corrections to the Einstein-Hilbert action and we show that, under very general conditions, it leads to the formation of regular black holes.…
This article presents a new model-independent constraint for bouncing black hole geometries. Using the thin shell formalism, this constraint sets a bound on the minimal allowed radius of the time-like surface of the collapsing star at the…
We discuss a two-step mechanism to create a new inflationary domain beyond a wormhole throat which is created by a phase transition around an evaporating black hole. The first step is creation of a false vacuum bubble with a thin-wall…
If the universe is trapped and cooled in a metastable false vacuum state, that state will eventually decay by bubble nucleation and expansion. For example, many extensions of the standard model incorporate new scalar fields whose potential…
In order to study the validity of analytical formulas used in the calculation of characteristic physical quantities related to vacuum bubbles, we conduct several numerical simulations of bubble kinematics in the context of cosmological…
We study gravitational-wave production from bubble dynamics (bubble collisions and sound waves) during a cosmic first-order phase transition with an analytic approach. We first propose modeling the system with the thin-wall approximation…
We propose a two-field model where the inflaton $\chi$ is non-minimally coupled to the instanton $\phi$. By choosing an appropriate coupling function, we realize the scenario where the difference of the values of potential between false…
We present a simple and intuitive description of both, the Schwinger effect and false vacuum decay through bubble nucleation, as tunneling problems in one-dimensional relativistic quantum mechanics. Both problems can be described by an…
Despite being at the heart of the theory of the "Big Bang" and cosmic inflation, the quantum field theory prediction of false vacuum tunneling has not been tested. To address the exponential complexity of the problem, a table-top quantum…
In the thin-wall approximation, the decay of a gravitating false vacuum to a lower-energy state is affected by the cosmological horizon structure in both spaces. The nucleation radius of a bubble of true vacuum depends on the surface…
The recent developments of microgravity experiments with ultracold atoms have produced a relevant boost in the study of shell-shaped ellipsoidal Bose-Einstein condensates. For realistic bubble-trap parameters, here we calculate the critical…
We re-examine the problem of vacuum decay in the presence of spherically symmetric black holes. Within the semiclassical approximation, we study configurations describing a bubble of true vacuum propagating outside a black hole formed from…
Within the context of a first-order phase transition in the early Universe, we study the collision process for vacuum bubbles expanding in a plasma. The effects of the plasma are simulated by introducing a damping term in the equations of…
With the back reaction of the vacuum energy-momentum tensor consistently taken into account, we study static spherically symmetric black-hole-like solutions to the semi-classical Einstein equation. The vacuum energy is assumed to be given…
We show that particle production during the expansion of bubbles of true vacuum in the sea of false vacuum is possible and calculate the resulting rate. As a result the nucleated bubbles cannot expand due to the transfer of false vacuum…
Localised heterogeneities have been recently discovered to act as bubble-nucleation sites in nonlinear field theories. Vacuum decay seeded by black holes is one of the most remarkable applications. This article proposes a simple and exactly…
The discoveries of LIGO/Virgo black holes in recent years have revitalized the study of primordial black holes. In this work, we investigate a mechanism where primordial black holes are formed by vacuum bubbles that randomly nucleate during…
In the context of eternal inflation we discuss the fate of Lambda = 0 bubbles when they collide with Lambda < 0 crunching bubbles. When the Lambda = 0 bubble is supersymmetric, it is not completely destroyed by collisions. If the domain…