Related papers: False vacuum as an unstable state: possible cosmol…
Within present constraints on the observed smooth energy and its equation of state parameter, it is important to find out whether the smooth energy is static (cosmological constant) or dynamic (quintessence). The most dynamical quintessence…
We point out that the (pseudo-)conformal Universe scenario may be realized as decay of conformally invariant, metastable vacuum, which proceeds via spontaneous nucleation and subsequent growth of a bubble of a putative new phase. We study…
There exists a growing body of observational evidence supporting a non-vanishing cosmological constant at the present epoch. We examine the possibility that such a term may arise directly from the potential energy which drove an…
The relativistic quantum decay laws of moving unstable particles are analyzed for a general class of mass distribution densities which behave as power laws near the (non-vanishing) lower bound $\mu_0$ of the mass spectrum. The survival…
The Standard Model Higgs becomes tachyonic at high energy scales according to current measurements. This unstable regime of the Higgs potential can be realized in the early Universe during high scale inflation, potentially with catastrophic…
We investigate false vacuum decay of a relativistic scalar field initialized in the metastable minimum of an asymmetric double-well potential. The transition to the true ground state is a well-defined initial-value problem in real time,…
We describe a link between the cosmological constant problem and the problem of time in quantum gravity. This arises by examining the relationship between the cosmological constant and vacuum energy in light of non-perturbative formulations…
Phase transitions are part of everyday life, yet are also believed to be part of the history of our universe, where the nature of particle interactions change as the universe settles into its vacuum state. The discovery of the Higgs, and…
We review the cosmological evidence for a low matter density universe and a cosmological constant or dynamical vacuum energy and address the cosmolog$ coincidence problem: why is the matter density about one-half the vacuum energy {\em…
Dynamical vacuum energy or quintessence, a slowly varying and spatially inhomogeneous component of the energy density with negative pressure, is currently consistent with the observational data. One potential difficulty with the idea of…
The Higgs effective potential becomes unstable at approximately $10^{11}$ GeV, and if only standard model interactions are considered, the lifetime $\tau$ of the electroweak vacuum turns out to be much larger than the age of the Universe…
The general thermodynamic analysis of the quantum vacuum, which is based on our knowledge of the vacua in condensed-matter systems, is consistent with the Einstein earlier view on the cosmological constant. In the equilibrium Universes the…
A mechanism for suppressing the cosmological constant is described, using a superconducting analogy in which fermions coupled to gravitons are in an unstable false vauum. The coupling of the fermions to gravitons and a screened attractive…
It is extraordinary that a number of observations indicate that we live in a spatially flat, low matter density Universe, which is currently undergoing a period of accelerating expansion. The effort to explain this current state has focused…
Phantom fields with negative kinetic energy are often plagued by the vacuum quantum instability in the ultraviolet region. We present a Lorentz-violating dark energy model free from this problem and show that the crossing of the…
We study late-time acceleration scenarios using a quintessence field initially trapped in a metastable false vacuum state. The false vacuum has non-zero vacuum energy and could drive exponential expansion if not coupled with gravity. Upon…
A quark-gluon phase transition in the Universe is researched after which vacuum (dark) energy has hardened and become cosmological constant. Before this a vacuum component of the Universe was changing by jumps during phase transitions since…
After reviewing the calculation of the Standard Model one-loop effective potential in a class of linear gauges, we discuss the physical observables entering the vacuum stability analysis. While the electroweak-vacuum-stability bound on the…
I discuss empty space, as it appears in the physical foundations of relativistic field theories and in the semiclassical study of isolated systems. Of particular interest is the relationship between empirical measurements of the…
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…