Related papers: Vacuum energy decay from a q-bubble
In the framework of an effective field theory of general relativity a model of scalar and vector bosons interacting with the metric field is considered. It is shown in the framework of a two-loop order calculation that for the cosmological…
False vacuum decay in field theory may be formulated as a boundary value problem in Euclidean space. In a previous work, we studied its solution in single scalar field theories with quadratic gravity and used it to find obstructions to…
The origin of negative pressure fluid (the dark energy) is investigated in the quantum model of the homogeneous, isotropic and closed universe filled with a uniform scalar field and a perfect fluid which defines a reference frame. The…
The accelerating expansion of the Universe points to a small positive value for the cosmological constant or vacuum energy density. We discuss recent ideas that the cosmological constant plus LHC results might hint at critical phenomena…
We re-examine the problem of vacuum decay in the presence of spherically symmetric black holes. Within the semiclassical approximation, we study configurations describing a bubble of true vacuum propagating outside a black hole formed from…
This is an essay sketching the line of thinking which has led the present author to propose the constituent or atomic model of gravitation more than a decade ago. It turns out that viewing the problem of gravitation as a quantum many body…
A spacetime-independent variable is introduced which characterizes a Lorentz-invariant self-sustained quantum vacuum. For a perfect (Lorentz-invariant) quantum vacuum, the self-tuning of this variable nullifies the effective energy density…
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 explore the fate of the universe given the possibility that the density associated with `dark energy' may decay slowly with time. Decaying dark energy is modeled by a homogeneous scalar field which couples minimally to gravity and whose…
The {\em instability of vacuum energy} in de Sitter space as discussed recently by Polyakov is argued to be a generic feature when external gravitational fields are present. It is related to the existence of {\em forbidden} (by momentum…
Assuming that the electroweak and QCD phase transitions are first order, upon supercooling, bubbles of the new phase appear. These bubbles grow to macroscopic sizes compared to the natural scales associated with the Compton wavelengths of…
We argue that discreteness at the Planck scale (naturally expected to arise from quantum gravity) might manifest in the form of minute violations of energy-momentum conservation of the matter degrees of freedom when described in terms of…
A new idea of the cosmological constant is proposed in this paper. Due to the horizon is limited, the quantum fluctuation of the inflaton field is not zero, a nonzero vacuum energy is remained as a residual inflationary energy of an unusual…
Given a scalar field with metastable minima, bubbles nucleate quantum mechanically. When bubbles collide, energy stored in the bubble walls is converted into kinetic energy of the field. This kinetic energy can facilitate the classical…
We consider the generic scenario of dark energy which arises through the latent heat of a hidden sector first order cosmological phase transition. This field could account for the extra radiation degree of freedom suggested by the CMB. We…
Vacuum decay in de Sitter space is a process of great physical interest, as it allows to rule out cosmological models in the early and current Universe. Its rate may be described in terms of an instanton in Euclidean space called bounce and…
We discuss the mechanism by which the field vacuum energy varies as a result of strong self-interaction. We propose a non-perturbative approach to treat strong interactions and discuss the problem in terms of quasi-particles describing the…
In a pioneering paper on the role of gravity on false vacuum decay, Coleman and De Luccia showed that a strong gravitational field can stabilize the false vacuum, suppressing the formation of true vacuum bubbles. This result is obtained for…
It is suggested that the true ground state of the world has exactly vanishing vacuum energy and that the cosmological constant that seems to have been observed is due to our region of the universe being stuck in a false vacuum, whose energy…
This contribution reviews recent work on a new approach to the cosmological constant problem, which starts from the macroscopic behavior of a conserved relativistic microscopic variable q. First, the statics of the vacuum energy density is…