Related papers: Quantum Fluctuations and New Instantons I: Linear …
We consider a new class of instantons in context of quantum field theory of a scalar field coupled with a chaotic background source field. We show how the instanton associated to the quantum tunneling from a metastable false to the true…
Cosmological phase transitions can give rise to intriguing phenomena, such as baryogenesis or a stochastic gravitational wave background, due to nucleation and percolation of vacuum bubbles in the primordial plasma. A key parameter for…
We perform a detailed study of the existence and the properties of O(4)-invariant instanton solutions in Einstein-scalar theory in the presence of flat potential barriers, i.e. barriers where the second derivative of the potential is small…
We present a dequantization procedure based on a variational approach whereby quantum fluctuations latent in the quantum momentum are suppressed. This is done by adding generic local deformations to the quantum momentum operator which give…
We numerically investigate the role of quantum fluctuations in superresolution of optical objects. First, we confirm that when quantum fluctuations are not taken into account, one can easily improve the resolution by one order of magnitude…
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 problem of metric fluctuations in the presence of the vacuum fluctuations of matter fields and critically assess the usual assertion that vacuum energy implies a Planckian cosmological constant. A new stochastic classical…
The vacuum decay in a de Sitter universe is studied within semiclassical approximation for the class of effective inflaton potentials whose curvature at the top is close to a critical value. By comparing the actions of the Hawking - Moss…
In a classically scale-invariant quantum field theory, tunneling rates are infrared divergent due to the existence of instantons of any size. While one expects such divergences to be resolved by quantum effects, it has been unclear how…
Recently it has been argued that a correct reading of the quantum fluctuations of the vacuum could lead to a solution to the cosmological constant problem. In this work we critically examine such a proposal, finding it questionable due to…
We discuss conditions for the absence of spontaneous breakdown of continuous symmetries in quantum lattice systems at $T=0$. Our analysis is based on Pitaevskii and Stringari's idea that the uncertainty relation can be employed to show…
It is shown that, to the lowest order in $\hbar,$ the particle production related to the tunneling that leads to the false vacuum decay is described by the orthogonal part of fluctuation field with respect to the bounce solution. As a…
We study a gauge theory model where there is an intermediate symmetry breaking to a meta- stable vacuum that breaks a simple gauge group to a U (1) factor. Such models admit the existence of meta-stable magnetic monopoles, which we dub…
We investigate the quantum vacuum and find the fluctuations can lead to the inhomogeneous quantum vacuum. We find that the vacuum fluctuations can significantly influence the cosmological inhomogeneity, which is different from what…
I provide some simple physical arguments that, once gravitation and some subtleties are taken into account, rather broad classes of potentials result in instantons which tunnel relatively rapidly between perturbatively stable minima. In…
For a large region of parameter space involving the cosmological constant and mass parameters, we discuss fluctuating spacetime solutions that are effectively Minkowskian on large time and distance scales. Rapid, small amplitude…
The tunneling potential formalism, an alternative to the standard Coleman Euclidean approach, offers in a natural way a unified view of vacuum decays. In particular, I show in this talk how Coleman's bounce is just a member of a continuous…
The classical isocapacitary inequality states that, among all sets of fixed volume, the ball uniquely minimizes the capacity. While this result holds in the continuum, it fails in the discrete setting, where the isocapacitary problem may…
We present a method for the study of quantum fluctuations of dissipative structures forming in nonlinear optical cavities, which we illustrate in the case of a degenerate, type I optical parametric oscillator. The method consists in (i)…
We study the spectrum of primordial fluctuations in theories where the inflaton field is coupled to massless fields and/or to itself. Conformally invariant theories generically predict a scale invariant spectrum. Scales entering the theory…