Related papers: Safety of Minkowski Vacuum
We consider in what sense quantum tunnelling is associated with non-classical probabilistic behaviour. We use the Wigner function quasi-probability description of quantum states. We give a definition of tunnelling that allows us to say…
If a theory has more than one classically stable vacuum, quantum tunneling and thermal jumps make the transition between the vacua possible. The transition happens through a first order phase transition started by nucleation of a bubble of…
We study exact tunneling solutions in scalar field theory for potential barriers composed of linear or quadratic patches. We analytically continue our solutions to imaginary Euclidean radius in order to study the profile of the scalar field…
Inspired by a recent paper$^*$ by C. Fefferman, J. Shapiro and M. Weinstein, we investigate quantum tunneling for a Hamiltonian with a symmetric double well and a uniform magnetic field. In the simultaneous limit of strong magnetic field…
We study the process of quantum tunnelling in self-interacting scalar field theories with non-minimal coupling to gravity. In these theories gravitational instantons can develop a neck -- a feature prohibited in theories with minimal…
We show that a non-zero renormalised value of the zero-point energy in $\lambda\phi^4$-theory over Minkowski spacetime is in tension with the scalar-field equation at two-loop order in perturbation theory.
Several recent arguments purport to show that there can be no relativistic, quantum-mechanical theory of localizable particles and, thus, that relativity and quantum mechanics can be reconciled only in the context of quantum field theory.…
Under the hypothesis that the cosmological constant vanishes in the true ground state with lowest possible energy density, we argue that the observed small but finite vacuum-like energy density can be explained if we consider a theory with…
We study the problem of false vacuum decay in arbitrary dimensions, in the presence of gravity, and compute the transition probability within the thin-wall approximation, generalising the results of Coleman and de Luccia. In the particular…
We provide a semiclassical theory of tunneling decay in a magnetic field and a three-dimensional potential of a general form. Because of broken time-reversal symmetry, the standard WKB technique has to be modified. The decay rate is found…
We develop a quantitative semiclassical theory for the resosnant tunneling through a quantum well in a tilted magnetic field. It is shown, that in the leading semiclassical approximation the tunneling current depends only on periodic orbits…
We consider quantum geometrodynamics and parametrized quantum field theories in the framework of the Bohm-de Broglie interpretation. In the first case, and following the lines of our previous work [1], where a hamiltonian formalism for the…
The swampland is the set of seemingly consistent low-energy effective field theories that cannot be consistently coupled to quantum gravity. In this review we cover some of the conjectural properties that effective theories should possess…
It is shown that the averaged null energy condition is fulfilled for a dense, translationally invariant set of vector states in any local quantum field theory in two-dimensional Minkowski spacetime whenever the theory has a mass gap and…
We propose that the solution to the cosmological vacuum energy puzzle may come from the infrared sector of the effective theory of gravity, where the impact of the trace anomaly is of upmost relevance. We proceed by introducing two…
It is shown that, to the lowest order in $\hbar,$ the particle production related to the tunneling that leads to the false vacuum decay is described by the orthogonal part of fluctuation field with respect to the bounce solution. As a…
We investigate the problems of ghosts and stability in the framework of asymptotical safe theory of gravity in the Minkowski background. Within one loop corrections, we obtain explicitly the constraints on the coupling parameters. Applying…
We consider vacuum tunneling of a new kind where the false vacua are not translationally invariant, but have topological defects that break some of their translational symmetries. In the particular case where the topological defects are…
Motivated by cosmological examples we study quantum field theoretical tunnelling from an initial state where the "classical field", i.e. the vacuum expectation value of the field operator is spatially homogeneous but performing a…
The space time that is used in relativistic Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory is the Minkowski space time. Yet, as pointed out by several scholars this classical space time is incompatible with the Heisenberg Uncertainity…