Related papers: Absolute Lower Bound on the Bounce Action
The tunneling wave function of the universe is calculated exactly for a de Sitter minisuperspace model with a massless conformally coupled scalar field, both by solving the Wheeler-DeWitt equation and by evaluating the Lorentzian path…
In this work we study vacuum decay and bubble nucleation in models of $f(R)$ higher curvature gravity. Building upon the analysis of Coleman-De Luccia (CDL), we present the formalism to calculate the Euclidean action and the bounce solution…
We develop efficient algorithms for level-truncation computations in open bosonic string field theory. We determine the classical action in the universal subspace to level (18,54) and apply this knowledge to numerical evaluations of the…
We study false vacuum decays catalysed by magnetic monopoles which act as tunnelling sites with exponentially enhanced decay rates. The field profiles describing the decay do not have the typically assumed $O(3)/O(4)$ symmetry, thus…
We investigate the negative modes about Coleman-De Luccia bounces governing vacuum transitions in de Sitter space, with the goal of gaining physical insight into the various anomalous results associated with these that have been reported in…
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…
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 discuss some aspects of the continuum limit of some lattice models, in particular the $2D$ $O(N)$ models. The continuum limit is taken either in an infinite volume or in a box whose size is a fixed fraction of the infinite volume…
We generalize the standard computation of homogeneous nucleation theory at zero temperature to a scenario in which the bubble shape is determined self-consistently with its quantum fluctuations. Studying two scalar models in 1+1 dimensions,…
We investigate vacuum decays in the early Universe in the presence of curvature perturbations. For sufficiently large perturbations associated with over-densities, we find that the bounce solution develops an oscillating middle stage near…
We compute bounce solutions describing false vacuum decay in a Phi**4 model in two dimensions in the Hartree approximation, thus going beyond the usual one-loop corrections to the decay rate. We use zero energy mode functions of the…
We study the effects of Goldstone modes on the stability of the vacuum in a $U(1)$ theory for a complex scalar field. The dynamics of the field resemble those of Keplerian motion in the presence of time-dependent friction, whose equations…
For the anisotropic Universe filled with massless vector field in the General Relativity frame we obtain bouncing solution for one of scale factors. We obtain the Universe with finite maximal energy density, finite value of…
We study tunneling in one-dimensional quantum mechanics using the path integral in real time, where solutions of the classical equation of motion live in the complex plane. Analyzing solutions with small (complex) energy, relevant for…
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 study the contribution to the decay of de Sitter vacua from bounces with O(3) x O(2) symmetry. These correspond to the thermal production of a vacuum bubble at the center of a horizon volume with radius r_H and a temperature defined by…
Some time ago we have suggested that positive vacuum energy exhibits a finite quantum break time, which can be a signal that a positive cosmological constant is inconsistent. From the requirement that Universe never undergoes through…
We construct the thermal bounce solution in holographic models that describes first-order phase transitions between the deconfined and confined phases in strongly-coupled gauge theories. This new, periodic Euclidean solution represents…
The periodic bounce configurations responsible for quantum tunneling are obtained explicitly and are extended to the finite energy case for minisuperspace models of the Universe. As a common feature of the tunneling models at finite energy…
In order to solve the problem of eternal acceleration, a model has been recently proposed including both a negative cosmological constant $\Lambda$ and a scalar field evolving under the action of an exponential potential. We further explore…