Related papers: Tunneling Without Bounce
We investigate false vacuum decay of a relativistic scalar field initialized in the metastable minimum of an asymmetric double-well potential. The transition to the true ground state is a well-defined initial-value problem in real time,…
Solitosynthesis of Q-balls in the false vacuum can result in a phase transition of a new kind. Formation and subsequent growth of Q-balls via the charge accretion proceeds until the solitons reach a critical charge, at which point it…
A large set of recent experiments has been exploring topological transport in bosonic systems, e.g. of photons or phonons. In the vast majority, time-reversal symmetry is preserved, and band structures are engineered by a suitable choice of…
We use path-integrals to derive a general expression for the semiclassical approximation to the partition function of a one-dimensional quantum-mechanical system. Our expression depends solely on ordinary integrals which involve the…
We present exact bounce solutions and amplitudes for tunneling in i) a piecewise linear-quartic potential and ii) a piecewise quartic-quartic potential. We cross check their correctness by comparing with results obtained through the…
We consider the quantum creation of a closed universe within the Euclidean path-integral formalism. An analytical expression for the tunneling probability is derived, including both the exponential suppression and the exact Gaussian…
We study Fubini instantons of a self-gravitating scalar field. The Fubini instanton describes the decay of a vacuum state under tunneling instead of rolling in the presence of a tachyonic potential. The tunneling occurs from the maximum of…
We investigate the recent suggestion that a Minkowski vacuum is either absolutely stable, or it has a divergent decay rate and thus fails to have a locally Minkowski description. The divergence comes from boost integration over momenta of…
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…
In this paper, we present a series of supersymmetric models exhibiting an entirely new vacuum structure: towers of metastable vacua with higher and higher energies. As the number of vacua grows towards infinity, the energy of the highest…
The standard vacuum bounce formalism suffers from inconsistencies when applied to thermal bubble nucleation, for which ad hoc workarounds are commonly adopted. Identifying the length scales on which nucleation takes place, we demonstrate…
We consider in detail the quantum-mechanical problem associated with the motion of a one-dimensional particle under the action of the double-well potential. Our main tool will be the euclidean (imaginary time) version of the path-integral…
Tunneling of a quasibound state is a non-smooth process in the entangled many-body case. Using time-evolving block decimation, we show that repulsive (attractive) interactions speed up (slow down) tunneling, which occurs in bursts. While…
If we imagine rewinding the universe to early times, the scale factor shrinks and the existence of a finite spatial volume may play a role in quantum tunnelling effects in a closed universe. It has recently been shown that such finite…
I show that cosmological bubble walls in the thin wall approximation are unstable to the creation of "barnacles" -- loci of different wall tension adjacent to regions filled with a third vacuum. Barnacle formation leads to the same…
The problem of inter-band tunneling in a semiconductor (Zener breakdown) in a nonstationary and homogeneous electric field is solved exactly. Using the exact analytical solution, the approximation based on classical trajectories is studied.…
We revisit the famous Coleman-de Luccia formalism for decay of false vacuum in gravitational theory. Since the corresponding wave function is time-independent we argue that its instanton's interpretation as the decay rate probability is…
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…
We study the influence of a tunnel barrier on the quantum transport through a circular cavity. Our analysis in terms of classical trajectories shows that the semiclassical approaches developed for ballistic transport can be adapted to deal…
We investigate vacuum statistics and stability in random axionic landscapes. For this purpose we developed an algorithm for a quick evaluation of the tunneling action, which in most cases is accurate within 10%. We find that stability of a…