Related papers: Vacuum Decay Induced by Quantum Fluctuations
The fluctuations in the spacing of the tunneling resonances through a quantum dot have been studied in the quantum Hall regime. Using the fact that the ground-state of the system is described very well by the Laughlin wavefunction, we were…
Observing physical effects of large quantum stress tensor fluctuations requires knowledge of the interactions between the probe and the particles of the underlying quantum fields. The quantum stress tensor operators must first be averaged…
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…
We examine the fluctuation theorems which traditionally have been studied for classical systems and enquire if they can be extended to the quantum domain, especially at low temperatures. The example chosen is that of a problem which has…
We present an extension of quantum field theory to the case when the spacetime topology fluctuates (spacetime foam). In this extension the number of bosonic fields becomes a variable and the ground state is characterized by a finite…
When an isolated quantum system is driven out of equilibrium, expectation values of general observables start oscillating in time. This article reviews the general theory of such temporal fluctuations. We first survey some results on the…
Quantum fluctuations of a certain class of bulk operators defined in spatial sub-volumes of Minkowski space-time, have an unexpected area scaling property. We wish to present evidence that such area scaling may be ascribed to a boundary…
We derive the fluctuation theorem for quantum-state statistics that can be obtained when we initially measure the total energy of a quantum system at thermal equilibrium, let the system evolve unitarily, and record the quantum-state data…
We investigate the interaction of a fluctuating alpha-effect with large-scale shear in a simple nonlinear 1-dimensional dynamo wave model. We firstly extend the calculations of Proctor (2007, MNRAS, 41, L39-L42) to include spatial variation…
With a modulated oscillator, we study several effects of quantum fluctuations far from thermal equilibrium. One of them is quantum heating, where quantum fluctuations lead to a finite-width distribution of a resonantly modulated oscillator…
We study the gravitational effects of a planar domain wall on quantum fluctuations of a massless scalar field during inflation. By obtaining an exact solution of the scalar field equation in de Sitter space, we show that the gravitational…
This paper studies the decay of a large, closed domain wall in a closed universe. Such walls can form in the presence of a broken, discrete symmetry. We introduce a novel process of quantum decay for such a wall, in which the vacuum…
Large vacuum fluctuations of a quantum stress tensor operator can be described by the asymptotic behavior of the probability distribution of the time or spacetime averaged operator. Here we focus on the case of stress tensor operators…
We extend previous work on the numerical diagonalization of quantum stress tensor operators in the Minkowski vacuum state, which considered operators averaged in a finite time interval, to operators averaged in a finite spacetime region.…
Gauge effects on the fluctuation properties of the normal-to-superconducting phase transition in bulk and thin film superconductors are reviewed. Similar problems in the description of other natural systems (liquid crystals, quantum field…
At non-zero temperature classical systems exhibit statistical fluctuations of thermodynamic quantities arising from the variation of the system's initial conditions and its interaction with the environment. The fluctuating work, for…
The effect of ordering field phase fluctuations on the normal and superconducting properties of a simple 2D model with a local four-fermion attraction is studied. Neglecting the coupling between the spin and charge degrees of freedom an…
We review the description of tunnelling phenomena in the semi-classical approximation in ordinary quantum mechanics and in quantum field theory. In particular, we describe in detail the calculation, up to the first quantum corrections, of…
The existence of irreducible field fluctuations in vacuum is an important prediction of quantum theory. These fluctuations have many observable consequences, like the Casimir effect which is now measured with good accuracy and agreement…
The fundamental vacuum state of quantum fields, related to Minkowski space, produces divergent fluctuations that must be suppressed in order to bring reality to the description of physical systems. As a consequence, negative vacuum…