Related papers: On 'Nothing'
Bubbles of nothing are a class of vacuum decay processes present in some theories with compactified extra dimensions. We investigate the existence and properties of bubbles of nothing in models where the scalar pseudomoduli controlling the…
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…
Bubbles of nothing (BoNs) describe the decay of spacetimes with compact dimensions and are thus of fundamental importance for many higher dimensional theories proposed beyond the Standard Model. BoNs admit a 4-dimensional description in…
The catastrophic decay of a spacetime with compact dimensions, via bubbles of nothing (BoNs), is probably a generic phenomenon. BoNs admit a 4-dimensional description as singular Coleman-de Luccia bounces of the size modulus field,…
Theories with compact extra dimensions can exhibit a vacuum instability known as a bubble of nothing. These decay modes can be obstructed if the internal manifold is stabilized by fluxes, or if it carries Wilson lines for background gauge…
A bubble of nothing is a spacetime instability where a compact dimension collapses. After nucleation, it expands at the speed of light, leaving "nothing" behind. We argue that the topological and dynamical mechanisms which could protect a…
We analyze quantum-mechanical counterpart of Newtonian cosmology and show that effects of zero-point motion eliminate classical density singularity. Quantum effects are particularly significant for closed Universes where without the…
We investigate the non-perturbative stability of supersymmetric compactifications with respect to decay via a bubble of nothing. We show examples where this kind of instability is not prohibited by the spin structure, i.e., periodicity of…
Within the framework of flux compactifications, we construct an instanton describing the quantum creation of an open universe from nothing. The solution has many features in common with the smooth 6d bubble of nothing solutions discussed…
We consider the generalisation of quantum tunneling transitions in the WKB approximation to the time-independent functional Schr\"odinger and Wheeler-DeWitt equations. Following a Lorentzian approach, we compute the transition rates among…
We investigate the formation via tunneling of inflating (false-vacuum) bubbles in a true-vacuum background, and the reverse process. Using effective potentials from the junction condition formalism, all true- and false-vacuum bubble…
We propose two new classes of instantons which describe the tunneling and/or quantum creation of closed and open universes. The instantons leading to an open universe can be considered as generalizations of the Coleman-De-Luccia solution.…
Quantum cosmology uses a wave function to model the universe, but finding solutions for this poses a problem as it is difficult to define the boundary conditions or identify the correct path for a path integral. We begin the discussion by…
We investigate the cosmological signatures of instantons mediating tunneling between de Sitter minima. For generic potentials the Coleman-de Luccia instanton does not necessarily exist; when it does not, the instanton which contributes to…
Vacuum decay in de Sitter space is a process of great physical interest, as it allows to rule out cosmological models in the early and current Universe. Its rate may be described in terms of an instanton in Euclidean space called bounce and…
The physics of tunneling from one spacetime into another is often understood in terms of instantons. For some instantons, it was recently shown in the literature that there are two complementary "interpretations" for their analytic…
We examine the particle production during tunneling in quantum cosmology. We consider a minisuperspace model with a massive, conformally coupled scalar field and a uniform radiation background. In this model, we construct a semiclassical…
The Cobordism Conjecture predicts spacetime-ending configurations, such as Bubbles of Nothing (BoN), being commonplace. These correspond to vacuum decays in which the compactification manifold $\mathcal{C}_n$ shrinks to a point, with the…
We consider vacuum transitions by bubble nucleation among 4D vacua with different values and signs of the cosmological constant $\Lambda $, including both up and down tunnelings. Following the Hamiltonian formalism, we explicitly compute…
We describe a new family of thin-wall instantons, with negative tension bubble walls, that mediate tunneling between Minkowski or de Sitter vacua. Some of these instantons can have exponentially enhanced tunneling rates, and would dominate…