Related papers: Thin-shell instanton tunneling: something-to-somet…
We analyze vacuum tunneling in quantum field theory in a general formalism by using the Wigner representation. In the standard instanton formalism, one usually approximates the initial false vacuum state by an eigenstate of the field…
Certain static soliton configurations of gauge fields in 4+1 dimensions correspond to the instanton in 4-Euclidean dimensions ``turned on its side,'' becoming a monopole in 4+1. The periodic instanton solution can be used with the method of…
We investigate oscillating instanton solutions of a self-gravitating scalar field between degenerate vacua. We show that there exist O(4)-symmetric oscillating solutions in a de Sitter background. The geometry of this solution is finite and…
In $N+1$ dimensions, false vacuum decay at zero temperature is dominated by the $O(N+1)$ symmetric instanton, a sphere of radius $R_0$, whereas at temperatures $T>>R_0^{-1}$, the decay is dominated by a `cylindrical' (static) $O(N)$…
We propose a new perspective on the intermittency in weakly dissipative systems. It is focused on the elementary (burst-like) event separating states with different properties. This event is seen as a real-space-time manifestation of an…
Instanton crystal is a fascinating phase which is encountered when the minimum of the free energy corresponds to a configuration with an imaginary-time-dependent order parameter in the form of a chain of alternating instantons and…
The role of instantons is investigated in the Lagrangian model for the velocity gradient evolution known as the Recent Fluid Deformation approximation. After recasting the model into the path-integral formalism, the probability distribution…
A fluid in contact with a flat structureless wall constitutes the simplest interface system, but the fluid-wall interfacial tension cannot be trivially and even unequivocally determined due to the ambiguity in identifying the precise…
How systems transit between different stable states under external perturbation is an important practical issue. We discuss here how a recently-developed energy optimization method for identifying the minimal disturbance necessary to reach…
A path integral over trajectories of $2n$ fluid particles is identified with a $2n$-th order correlation function of a passive scalar convected by $d$-dimensional short-correlated multi-scale incompressible random velocity flow. Strong…
We construct the half-supersymmetric instanton solutions that are electric-magnetically dual to the recently discussed half-supersymmetric Q7-branes. We call these instantons `Q-instantons'. Whereas the D-instanton is most conveniently…
We use instanton numbers to: (i) stratify moduli of vector bundles, (ii) calculate relative homology of moduli spaces and (iii) distinguish curve singularities.
For {\it low} T new strict results for the instanton density n(T) are reported. Using the PCAC methods, we express n(T) in terms of {\it vacuum} average values of certain operators, times their {\it calculated} T-dependence. At high T, we…
We find an exact classical solution in Euclidean gravity coupled to a scalar field with a particular form of potential commonly used in tachyon cosmology. This solution represents a tunneling between two vacua.
Instanton theory relates the rate constant for tunneling through a barrier to the periodic classical trajectory on the upturned potential energy surface whose period is $\tau=\hbar/(k_{\rm B}T)$. Unfortunately, the standard theory is only…
We revisit the path integral description of quantum tunneling and lay the groundwork for its generalization to excites states through real-time path integral techniques. For clarity, we focus on the simple toy model of a point particle in a…
For noninteracting particles moving in a Gaussian random potential, there exists a disagreement in the literature on the asymptotic expression for the density of states in the tail of the band. We resolve this discrepancy. Further we…
We present a new way to compute and interpret quantum tunneling in a 1-D double-well potential. For large transition time we show that the quantum action functional gives an analytical expression for tunneling amplitudes. This has been…
We describe the simplest example of an instanton bag in Euclidean space. It consists of a monopole wall and a Kaluza-Klein monopole wall, lifted to one higher dimension, trapping the instanton charge in the middle. This object has finite…
Overlapping instantons have an action density profile that significantly deviates from the simple addition of the density profiles of single instantons. This turns out to have important consequences for identifying the proper instanton…