Related papers: Vacuum Decay Induced by Quantum Fluctuations
We discuss the intimate connection between the chaotic dynamics of a classical field theory and the instability of the one-loop effective action of the associated quantum field theory. Using the example of massless scalar electrodynamics,…
Any quantum system interacting with a complex environment undergoes decoherence. Empty space is filled with vacuum energy due to matter fields in their ground state and represents an underlying environment that any quantum particle has to…
This paper is concerned with two questions in the decoherent histories approach to quantum mechanics: the emergence of approximate classical predictability, and the fluctuations about it necessitated by the uncertainty principle. We…
A new approach to vacuum decay in quantum field theory, based on a simple variational formulation in field space using a tunneling potential, is ideally suited to study the effects of gravity on such decays. The method allows to prove in…
Quantum fluctuations or other moments of a state contribute to energy expectation values and can imply interesting physical effects. In quantum cosmology, they turn out to be important for a discussion of density bounds and instabilities of…
We study scenarios where a scalar field has a spatially varying vacuum expectation value such that the total field variation is super-Planckian. We focus on the case where the scalar field controls the coupling of a U(1) gauge field, which…
Temporal fluctuations in the Hadamard walk on circles are studied. A temporal standard deviation of probability that a quantum random walker is positive at a given site is introduced to manifest striking differences between quantum and…
We show, via numerical simulations, that the fidelity decay behavior of quasi-integrable systems is strongly dependent on the location of the initial coherent state with respect to the underlying classical phase space. In parallel to…
Metastable states decay at zero temperature through quantum tunneling at an exponentially small rate, which depends on the Coleman-de Luccia instanton, also known as bounce. In some theories, the bounce may not exist or its on-shell action…
This paper describes the effects of a complex scalar scaling field on quantum mechanics. The field origin is an extension of the gauge freedom for basis choice in gauge theories to the underlying scalar field. The extension is based on the…
We study the semiclassical fluctuation problem around bounce solutions for a self-interacting scalar field in curved space. As in flat space, the fluctuation problem separates into partial waves labeled by an integer l, and we determine the…
A model for observable effects of electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations is presented. The model involves a probe pulse which traverses a slab of nonlinear optical material with a nonzero second order polarizability. We argue that the pulse…
Quantum gravitational effects may induce stochastic fluctuations in the structure of space-time, to produce a characteristic foamy structure. It has been known for some time now that these fluctuations may have observable consequences for…
We show that dissipative effects have a significant impact on the evolution of cosmological scalar fields, leading to friction, entropy production and field fluctuations. We explicitly compute the dissipation coefficient for different…
The tachyonic regime of the quantum fluctuations of a self-interacting scalar field around its vacuum mean value is studied within a kinetic approach. We derive a quantum kinetic equation which determines the time evolution of the momentum…
We consider the scenario of a fluctuating spacetime due to a deformed commutation relation with a fluctuating deformation parameter, or to a fluctuating metric tensor. By computing the resulting dynamics and averaging over these…
Massless scalar fields originating in a quantum vacuum state acquire a scale-invariant spectrum of fluctuations in a matter-dominated contracting universe. We show that these isocurvature fluctuations transfer to a scale-invariant spectrum…
Vacuum field fluctuations exert a radiation pressure which induces mechanical effects on scatterers. The question naturally arises whether the energy of vacuum fluctuations gives rise to inertia and gravitation in agreement with the general…
Recent discussions suggest the possibility that short distance physics can significantly modify the behavior of quantum fluctuations in the inflationary universe, and alter the standard large scale structure predictions. Such modifications…
We study a model for quantum lightcone fluctuations in which vacuum fluctuations of the electric field and of the squared electric field in a nonlinear dielectric material produce variations in the flight times of probe pulses. When this…