Related papers: Global Aspects of Spaces of Vacua
If a theory has more than one classically stable vacuum, quantum tunneling and thermal jumps make the transition between the vacua possible. The transition happens through a first order phase transition started by nucleation of a bubble of…
Quantum phase transitions encompass a variety of phenomena that occur in quantum systems exhibiting several possible symmetries. Traditionally, these transitions are explored by continuously varying a control parameter that connects two…
Quantum vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field in empty space seem not to produce observable effects over the motion of a charged test particle. However, when a change in the background vacuum state is implemented, as for instance…
Phase transitions between two competing vacua of a given theory are quite common in physics. We discuss how to construct the space-time solutions that allow the description of phase transitions between different branches (or asymptotics) of…
We study one-loop quantum corrections to gauge couplings in heterotic vacua with spontaneous supersymmetry breaking. Although in non-supersymmetric constructions these corrections are not protected and are typically model dependent, we show…
We summarize an explicit construction of a duality cycle for geometric transitions in type II and heterotic theories. We emphasize that the manifolds with torsion constructed with this duality cycle are crucial for understanding different…
We study the phase space of periodically modulated gravitational cavity by means of quantum recurrence phenomena. We report that the quantum recurrences serve as a tool to connect phase space of the driven system with spectrum in quantum…
The contribution from quantum vacuum fluctuations of a real massless scalar field to the motion of a test particle that interacts with the field in the presence of a perfectly reflecting flat boundary is here investigated. There is no…
We discuss here phase transitions in quantum field theory in the context of vacuum realignment through an explicit construction. Vacuum destabilisation may occur through a scalar attaining a nonzero expectation value, or through a…
The tunnelling of virtual matter-antimatter pairs from the quantum vacuum in multidimensions is studied. We consider electric backgrounds as a linear combination of a spatial Sauter field and, interchangeably, certain weaker time dependent…
We study quantum aspects of the galileon duality, especially in the case of a particular interacting galileon theory that is said to be dual to a free theory through the action of a simultaneous field and coordinate transformation. This…
The task of testing whether quantum theory applies to all physical systems and all scales requires considering situations where a quantum probe interacts with another system that need not obey quantum theory in full. Important examples…
The lately proposed vacuum matter coupling model (arXiv:1303.6568) seems to be able to provide solutions to a variety of problems in cosmology. This coupling expressed by a transition term between vacuum energy and matter, but we point out…
We exploit the concept of Landau-Zener transitions at avoided energy crossings as a quantum-control tool. In an avoided crossing the two quantum states interchange their characteristics as an external parameter is varied. Depending on the…
These notes provide a pedagogical introduction to the theoretical study of vacuum polarization effects in strong electromagnetic fields as provided by state-of-the-art high-intensity lasers. Quantum vacuum fluctuations give rise to…
A number of physical processes show some form of bifurcation or periodic splintering of a single distribution into two new ones. Recently, it has been noted that cavity searches for interactions between photons and exotic fields may also…
We examine structural and dynamical properties of quantum resonances associated with an avoided crossing and identify the parameter shifts where these properties attain maximal or extreme values, first at a general level, and then for a…
We consider vacuum tunneling of a new kind where the false vacua are not translationally invariant, but have topological defects that break some of their translational symmetries. In the particular case where the topological defects are…
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…
Integrating out virtual quantum fluctuations in an originally local quantum field theory results in an effective theory which is non-local. In this Letter we argue that tunneling of the 3rd kind - where particles traverse a barrier by…