Related papers: Absolute Lower Bound on the Bounce Action
We introduce a new picture of vacuum decay which, in contrast to existing semiclassical techniques, provides a real-time description and does not rely on classically-forbidden tunneling paths. Using lattice simulations, we observe vacuum…
We investigate the realization of a nonsingular cosmological bounce in metric $f(R)$ gravity using a controlled exponential deformation of the Starobinsky $R^{2}$ model. Adopting a smooth Gaussian-type bouncing scale factor, we first…
Bounce-averaged theories provide a framework for simulating relatively slow processes, such as collisional transport and quasilinear diffusion, by averaging these processes over the fast periodic motions of a particle on a closed orbit.…
The false vacuum decay has been a central theme in physics for half a century with applications to cosmology and to the theory of fundamental interactions. This fascinating phenomenon is even more intriguing when combined with the…
Measurements of neutron beta decay observables required to determine $|V_{ud}|$ are reaching the 0.1% accuracy. In this paper we review the calculation of the decay rate of this process, discuss its relevant uncertainties, and obtain an…
The scalar potential of the MSSM may have local and global minima characterized by non-zero expectation values of charged and colored bosons. Even if the true vacuum is not color and charge conserving, the early Universe is likely to occupy…
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…
We revisit the problem of decay of a metastable vacuum induced by the presence of a particle. For the bosons of the `master field' the problem is solved in any number of dimensions in terms of the spontaneous decay rate of the false vacuum,…
We investigate the role of nonperturbative, bubble-like inhomogeneities on the decay rate of false-vacuum states in two and three-dimensional scalar field theories. The inhomogeneities are induced by setting up large-amplitude oscillations…
We investigate the convergence behaviors of the scalar and the vector perturbations for a big bounce phase in loop quantum cosmology. Two models are discussed: one is the universe filled by a massless scalar field; the other is a toy model…
We study false vacuum decay for a gauged complex scalar field in a polynomial potential with nearly degenerate minima. Radiative corrections to the profile of the nucleated bubble as well as the full decay rate are computed in the planar…
In this paper, we numerically study the impact heavy field degrees of freedom have on vacuum metastability in a toy model, with the aim of better understanding how the decoupling theorem extends to semiclassical processes. We observe that…
We study the effects of a fixed de Sitter geometry background in scenarios of false vacuum decay. It is currently understood that bubble nucleation processes associated with first order phase transitions are particularly important in…
We derive the scalar potential in zero mode effective action arising from a de Sitter brane embedded in five dimensions with bulk cosmological constant $\Lambda$. The scalar potential for a scalar field canonically normalized is given by…
Coleman tunneling in a general scalar potential with two non-degenerate minima is known to have an approximation in terms of a piecewise linear triangular-shaped potential with sharp 'kinks' at the place of the local minima. This…
We perform a detailed investigation of the simplest possible cosmological model in which a bounce can occur, namely that where the dynamics is led by a simple massive scalar field in a general self-interacting potential and a background…
The tunneling potential formalism makes it easy to construct exact solutions to the vacuum decay problem in potentials with multiple fields. While some exact solutions for single-field decays were known, we present the first nontrivial…
False vacuum decay, a quantum mechanical first-order phase transition in scalar field theories, is an important phenomenon in early universe cosmology. Recently, real-time semi-classical techniques based on ensembles of lattice simulations…
In the calculation of the decay rate at finite temperature using the saddle point approximation, we identified some inconsistencies in the calculation of the decay rate at zero temperature. These inconsistencies may impact the explanation…
In field theories where a metastable false vacuum state arises as a result of radiative corrections, the calculation of the rate of false vacuum decay by bubble nucleation depends on the effective potential and the other functions that…