Related papers: Towards a Solution of the Negative Mode Problem in…
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…
In this work, we seek a cosmological mechanism that may define the sign of the effective gravitational coupling constant, {\em G}. To this end, we consider general scalar-tensor gravity theories as they provide the field theory natural…
Measurable quantities that have positive values in classical dynamical systems need not to be positive in quantum theory. For example, consider a free quantum mechanical particle in one dimension. There are quantum states in which the…
Models of loop quantum gravity based on real connections have a deformed notion of general covariance, which leads to the phenomenon of signature change. This result is confirmed here in a general analysis of all midisuperspace models…
The gravity-driven flow along an annular topological defect (string) with transversely corrugations is investigated by using the verified transition-rate model and boundary perturbation method. We found that for certain activation volume…
The tunneling approach for entropy generation in quantum gravity is applied to black holes. The area entropy is recovered and shown to count only a tiny fraction of the black hole degeneracy. The latter stems from the extension of the wave…
Inflation with tunneling from a false to a true vacuum becomes viable in the presence of a scalar field that slows down the initial de Sitter phase. As a by-product this field also sets dynamically the value of the Newton constant observed…
We study the Giddings-Strominger wormholes in string theories. We found negative modes among O(4)-symmetric fluctuations about the non-singular wormhole background. Hence the stringy wormhole contribution to the euclidean functional…
The $(kkk)$ double layered quantum Hall state has been shown to exhibit many superfluid properties including the appearance of an alternating tunnelling current in response to an external voltage V. Here we propose the notion of "sideways…
We clarify under what conditions slow-roll inflation can continue almost undisturbed, while briefly evolving through a (semi-classically) metastable false vacuum. Furthermore, we look at potential signatures in the primordial power spectrum…
We present microscopic transport calculations of the tunneling spectra of non-magnetic metal nanoparticles. We show that charge fluctuations give rise to tunneling resonances of a new type. Positive and negative fluctuations have differing…
In general relativity producing a regular bounce entails violation of Null Energy Condition for a dynamical source in the model. That generically indicates existence of ghosts or other instabilities. However, in cuscuton modification of…
We construct effective field theories in which gravity is modified via spontaneous breaking of local Lorentz invariance. This is a gravitational analogue of the Higgs mechanism. These theories possess additional graviton modes and modified…
Electron tunneling between quantum Hall systems on the same two dimensional plane separated by a narrow barrier is studied. We show that in the limit where inelastic scattering time is much longer than the tunneling time, which can be…
We explore the possibility that theories with negative kinetic energy (ghosts) can be meta-stable up to cosmologically long times. In classical mechanics, ghosts undergo spontaneous lockdown rather than run-away if weakly-coupled and…
The quantum decay of a metastable vacuum is exponentially suppressed by a tunneling action that can be calculated in the semi-classical approximation as the Euclidean action of a bounce that interpolates between the false and true phases.…
General relativity and its cosmological solution predicts the existence of tensor modes of perturbations evolving on top of our Friedman-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker expanding Universe. Being gauge invariant and not necessarily coupled to…
One of the greatest problems of standard cosmology is the Big Bang singularity. Previously it has been shown that non-local ghostfree higher-derivative modifications of Einstein gravity in the ultra-violet regime can admit non-singular…
Tunnel splitting oscillations in magnetic molecules are reconsidered within the simplest model for the problem, which does not contain fourth order anisotropy. It is shown that at large magnetic field, there is only one instanton, and it is…
There are several exotic tunneling processes that can be realized only by incorporating the effect of gravity. Here, we point out that we encounter difficulties in constructing the WKB wave function, once we try to describe quantum…