Related papers: Minkowski vacua can be metastable
A new approach to vacuum decay in quantum field theory, based on a simple variational formulation in field space using a tunneling potential, is ideally suited to study the effects of gravity on such decays. The method allows to prove in…
Theories with compact extra dimensions are sometimes unstable to decay into a bubble of nothing -- an instability resulting in the destruction of spacetime. We investigate the existence of these bubbles in theories where the moduli fields…
Distinguishing whether a system supports alternate low-energy (locally stable) states -- stable (true vacuum) versus metastable (false vacuum) -- by direct observation can be difficult when the lifetime of the state is very long but…
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 prove the global asymptotic stability of the Minkowski space for the massless Einstein-Vlasov system in wave coordinates. In contrast with previous work on the subject, no compact support assumptions on the initial data of the Vlasov…
The false vacuum decay has been a central theme in physics for half a century with applications to cosmology and to the theory of fundamental interactions. This fascinating phenomenon is even more intriguing when combined with the…
We try to find conditions, the fulfillment of which allows a universe born in a metastable false vacuum state to survive and not to collapse. The conditions found are in the form of inequalities linking the depending on time $t$…
In this paper we prove the nonlinear stability of Minkowski space-time with a translation Killing field. In the presence of such a symmetry, the 3 + 1 vacuum Einstein equations reduce to the 2 + 1 Einstein equations with a scalar field. We…
We study the effects of internal symmetries on the decay by bubble nucleation of a metastable false vacuum. The zero modes about the bounce solution that are associated with the breaking of continuous internal symmetries result in an…
The positive energy theorem precludes the possibility of Minkowski flat space decaying by any mechanism. In certain circumstances, however, large quantum fluctuations of the gravitational field could arise---not only at the Planck scale,…
Whether the Standard Model electroweak vacuum is stable, metastable or unstable depends crucially on the top mass (and, to a lesser extent, on other measurable quantities). These topics are reviewed and updated by taking into account the…
We recently investigated the nature of resonant tunnelling in standard scalar Quantum Field Theory, uncovering the conditions required for resonance. It was shown that whereas the homogeneous false vacuum may decay via bubble nucleation, it…
In the case of a metastable electroweak vacuum the quantum corrected effective potential plays a crucial role in the potential instability of the Standard Model. In the Early Universe, in particular during inflation and reheating, this…
In this paper, we numerically study the impact heavy field degrees of freedom have on vacuum metastability in a toy model, with the aim of better understanding how the decoupling theorem extends to semiclassical processes. We observe that…
We give a complete and rigorous proof of the Unruh effect, in the following form. We show that the state of a two-level system, uniformly accelerated with proper acceleration $a$, and coupled to a scalar bose field initially in the…
Minkowski space is shown to be globally stable as a solution to the massive Einstein--Vlasov system. The proof is based on a harmonic gauge in which the equations reduce to a system of quasilinear wave equations for the metric, satisfying…
We investigate the bounce solutions in vacuum decay problems. We show that it is possible to have a stable false vacuum in a potential that is unbounded from below.
We consider a wide class of four-dimensional effective field theories in which gravity is coupled to multiple four-forms and their dual scalar fields, with membrane sources charged under the corresponding three-form potentials. Four-form…
We show by matching two flat spaces one in Minkowski coordinates ( empty space) and the other in Minkowski coordinates after a special conformal transformation (also empty space) through a bubble with positive and constant surface tension,…
In the decay process of metastable vacua in quantum field theories, the bounce solution, a classical solution in Euclideanized theories, is helpful in calculating the decay rate. Recently, the bounce solution with a conical singularity has…