Related papers: Topics in vacuum decay (Ph.D Thesis)
Theories with more than one vacuum allow quantum transitions between them, which may proceed via bubble nucleation; theories with more than two vacua posses additional decay modes in which the wall of a bubble may further decay. The…
We study tunneling between vacua in multi-dimensional field spaces. Working in the strict thin wall approximation, we find that the conventional instantons for false vacuum decay develop a new vanishing eigenvalue in their fluctuation…
We use analytic estimates and numerical simulations to explore the stochastic approach to vacuum decay. According to this approach, the time derivative of a scalar field, which is in a local vacuum state, develops a large fluctuation and…
We extend the study of the effect of static primordial black holes on vacuum decay. In particular, we compare the tunneling rates between vacua of different values of the cosmological constant and black hole mass by pointing out the…
The theory of false vacuum decay in a thermal system may have a cross-over from predominantly thermal transitions to quantum transitions as the temperature is decreased. New numerical methods and results are presented here that can be used…
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…
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…
Positive vacuum energy together with extra dimensions of space imply that our four-dimensional Universe is unstable, generically to decompactification of the extra dimensions. Either quantum tunneling or thermal fluctuations carry one past…
We find the novel effect on the decay of a false vacuum in view of quantum field theory, which is induced by a field coupling to the scalar field related to a first-order phase transition. This effect of the environment can never be…
We consider the decay of vortices trapped in the false vacuum of a theory of scalar electrodynamics in 2+1 dimensions. The potential is inspired by models with intermediate symmetry breaking to a metastable vacuum that completely breaks a…
For landscapes of field theory vacua, we identify an effect that can greatly enhance the decay rates to wildly distant minima--so much so that such transitions may dominate over transitions to near neighbors. We exhibit these 'giant leaps'…
False vacuum decay in quantum mechanical first order phase transitions is a phenomenon with wide implications in cosmology, and presents interesting theoretical challenges. In the standard approach, it is assumed that false vacuum decay…
We present new solutions of vacuum decay in non-Minkowski spacetimes. On a de Sitter background, the tunneling between vacuum states with a nonvanishing energy difference has been considered, whereas in the special case of degenerate vacua…
Topology-changing transitions between vacua of different effective dimensionality are studied in the context of a 6-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell theory. The landscape of this theory includes a $6d$ de Sitter vacuum ($dS_6$), a number of…
Phase transitions between two competing vacua of a given theory are quite common in physics. We discuss how to construct the space-time solutions that allow the description of phase transitions between different branches (or asymptotics) of…
The quantum decay of a relativistic scalar field from a metastable state ("false vacuum decay") is a fundamental idea in quantum field theory and cosmology. This occurs via local formation of bubbles of true vacuum with their subsequent…
Quantum mechanics makes the otherwise stable vacua of a theory metastable through the nucleation of bubbles of the new vacuum. This in turn causes a first order phase transition. These cosmological phase transitions may have played an…
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…
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…
Metastable `false' vacuum states are an important feature of the Standard Model of particle physics and many theories beyond it. Describing the dynamics of a phase transition out of a false vacuum via the nucleation of bubbles is essential…