Related papers: False vacuum decay: an introductory review
In this brief note, by applying the stochastic approach to multiple fields, we estimate the probability of tunneling between vacua in a landscape with $\cal N$ fields. We find that the probability can be enhanced by large $\cal N$. When…
The field-theoretical description of quantum fluctuations on the background of a tunneling field $\sigma$ is revisited in the case of a functional Schrodinger approach. We apply this method in the case when quantum fluctuations are coupled…
We study the stability of quantum motion of classically regular systems in presence of small perturbations. Onthe base of a uniform semiclassical theory we derive the fidelity decay which displays a quite complexbehaviour, from Gaussian to…
A method to determine the quantum state of a scalar field after $O(4)$-symmetric bubble nucleation has been developed recently. The method has an advantage that it concisely gives us a clear picture of the resultant quantum state. In…
We investigate the tunneling process between two symmetric stable islands of a forced pendulum Hamiltonian in the weak chaos regime. We show that when the tunneling doublet is quantized over a classical non-linear resonance the tunneling…
The decay of metastable states is dominated by quantum tunneling at low temperatures and by thermal activation at high temperatures. The escape rate of a particle out of a square well is calculated within a semi-classical approximation and…
In a previous paper [Blado G, Owens C, and Meyers V 2014 Quantum Wells and the Generalized Uncertainty Principle Eur. J. Phys. 35 065011], we showed that quantum gravity effects can be discussed with only a background in non-relativistic…
False vacuum decay in quantum mechanical first order phase transitions is a phenomenon with wide implications in cosmology, and presents interesting theoretical challenges. In the standard approach, it is assumed that false vacuum decay…
We derive a prediction of dynamical tunneling rates from regular to chaotic phase-space regions combining the direct regular-to-chaotic tunneling mechanism in the quantum regime with an improved resonance-assisted tunneling theory in the…
In the case of a metastable electroweak vacuum the quantum corrected effective potential plays a crucial role in the potential instability of the Standard Model. In the Early Universe, in particular during inflation and reheating, this…
We develop semiclassical methods for studying bubble nucleation in models with parameters that vary slowly in time. Introducing a more general rotation of the time contour allows access to a larger set of final states, and typically a…
We calculate the tunneling density of states of a two-dimensional interacting electron gas in a quantizing magnetic field. We show that the observed pseudogap in the density of states can be understood as the result of an infrared…
We discuss the sensitivity of tunneling processes to the initial preparation of the quantum state. We compare the case of Gaussian wave packets of different positional variances using a generalised Woods-Saxon potential for which analytical…
It is shown that tunneling rates can be defined in terms of a false-vacuum effective action whose reality and convexity properties differ from those of the corresponding groundstate functional. The tunneling rate is directly related to the…
The decay rate of metastable states is determined at high temperatures by thermal activation, whereas at temperatures close to zero quantum tunneling is relevant. At some temperature $T_{c}$ the transition from classical to…
In the thin-wall approximation, the decay of a gravitating false vacuum to a lower-energy state is affected by the cosmological horizon structure in both spaces. The nucleation radius of a bubble of true vacuum depends on the surface…
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 discuss the possible influence of a cosmic magnetic field on the macroscopic quantum tunneling process associated, in a cosmological context, to the decay of the "false vacuum." We find a close analogy with the effects of an external…
In this work we characterize the false vacuum decay in the ferromagnetic quantum Ising chain with a weak longitudinal field subject to continuous monitoring of the local magnetization. Initializing the system in a metastable state, the…
We present a detailed non-perturbative analysis of the time-evolution of a well-known quantum-mechanical system - a particle between potential walls - describing the decay of unstable states. For sufficiently high barriers, corresponding to…