Related papers: Pseudo-Bounces vs. New Instantons
The necessary and sufficient condition for the false vacuum decay in a de Sitter universe via Coleman - de Luccia instanton is applied on the scalar field with quasi - exponential potential.
If the universe is trapped and cooled in a metastable false vacuum state, that state will eventually decay by bubble nucleation and expansion. For example, many extensions of the standard model incorporate new scalar fields whose potential…
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…
We investigate the role of nonperturbative, bubble-like inhomogeneities on the decay rate of false-vacuum states in two and three-dimensional scalar field theories. The inhomogeneities are induced by setting up large-amplitude oscillations…
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,…
Motivated by the recent work of Chigusa, Moroi, and Shoji, we propose a new simple gradient flow equation to derive the bounce solution which contributes to the decay of the false vacuum. Our discussion utilizes the discussion of Coleman,…
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…
We study the decay of the false vacuum in the regime where the quantum field theory analysis is not valid, since gravitational effects become important. This happens when the height of the barrier separating the false and the true vacuum is…
The false vacuum decay has been a central theme in physics for half a century with applications to cosmology and to the theory of fundamental interactions. This fascinating phenomenon is even more intriguing when combined with the…
We study the quantum-mechanical tunneling phenomenon in models which include the existence of non-equivalent vacua. For such a purpose we evaluate the euclidean propagator between two minima of the potential at issue in terms of the…
We propose a simple non-perturbative formalism for false vacuum decay using functional methods. We introduce the quasi-stationary effective action, a bounce action that non-perturbatively incorporates radiative corrections and is robust to…
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…
A bouncing cosmology with an initial matter-dominated phase of contraction during which scales which are currently probed with cosmological observations exit the Hubble radius provides a mechanism alternative to inflation for producing a…
We consider a formalism to describe the false-vacuum decay of a scalar field in gauge theories in non-perturbative regimes. We find that the larger the gauge coupling with respect to the self-coupling of the scalar, the shallower the local…
We study the effects of internal symmetries on the decay by bubble nucleation of a metastable false vacuum. The zero modes about the bounce solution that are associated with the breaking of continuous internal symmetries result in an…
The Tunneling Potential Formalism was introduced to calculate the tunneling actions that control vacuum decay as an alternative to the standard Euclidean Formalism. The new approach sets the problem as a simple variational problem in field…
It appears difficult to construct a simple model for an open universe based on the one bubble inflationary scenario. The reason is that one needs a large mass to avoid the tunneling via the Hawking Moss solution and a small mass for…
We study zero-temperature false vacuum decay in $D$ compact spatial dimensions and show that for volumes below a critical value a new bounce solution, different from Coleman's celebrated $O(D)$ bubble, mediates the decay process, and…
In the absence of gravity, one can prove that tunnelling instantons exhibit exactly one negative mode in their spectrum of fluctuations. It is precisely the existence of this tunnelling negative mode that warrants an interpretation of these…
Theories with more than one vacuum allow quantum transitions between them, which may proceed via bubble nucleation; theories with more than two vacua posses additional decay modes in which the wall of a bubble may further decay. The…