Related papers: False vacuum decay: an introductory review
The probability of destruction of a metastable vacuum state by the field of a highly virtual particle with energy $E$ is calculated for a (3+1) dimensional theory in the leading WKB approximation in the thin-wall limit. It is found that the…
We consider a minisuperspace model for a closed universe with small and positive cosmological constant, filled with a massive scalar field conformally coupled to gravity. In the quantum version of this model, the universe may undergo a…
A detailed real time description of quantum tunneling in the semiclassical limit is given, using complex classical trajectories. This picture connects naturally with the ideas of post-selection and weak measurement introduced by Aharonov…
A state of an electron in a quantum wire or a thin film becomes metastable, when a static electric field is applied perpendicular to the wire direction or the film surface. The state decays via tunneling through the created potential…
Semiclassical approximations for tunneling processes usually involve complex trajectories or complex times. In this paper we use a previously derived approximation involving only real trajectories propagating in real time to describe the…
We calculate the decay rate for a state prepared in a thermal density matrix centered on a metastable ground state. We find a rate that is intrinsically time {\it dependent}, as opposed to the {\it constant} rates of previous works. The…
We use path-integrals to derive a general expression for the semiclassical approximation to the partition function of a one-dimensional quantum-mechanical system. Our expression depends solely on ordinary integrals which involve the…
We study false vacuum decay for a gauged complex scalar field in a polynomial potential with nearly degenerate minima. Radiative corrections to the profile of the nucleated bubble as well as the full decay rate are computed in the planar…
A metastable state, or a false vacuum, is not an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian in quantum field theory. Its energy density has a non-zero imaginary part equal to its decay width. Therefore, supersymmetry cannot be exact in the false vacuum.…
The tunneling between the two ground states of an Ising ferromagnet is a typical example of many-body tunneling processes between two local minima, as they occur during quantum annealing. Performing quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations we…
In an effective Lagrangian approach to QCD we nonperturbatively calculate an analytic approximation to the decay rate of a false vacuum per unit volume, $\Gamma/V$. We do so for both zero and high temperature theories. This result is…
We investigate the decay of current on a superconducting cosmic string through quantum tunneling. We construct the instanton describing tunneling in a simple bosonic string model, and estimate the decay rate. The tunneling rate vanishes in…
The relative probability to decay towards different vacua during inflation is studied. The calculation is performed in single-field slow-roll potentials using the stochastic inflation formalism. Various situations are investigated,…
We study tunneling in one-dimensional quantum mechanics using the path integral in real time, where solutions of the classical equation of motion live in the complex plane. Analyzing solutions with small (complex) energy, relevant for…
We discover that quantum dynamical tunneling, occurring between phase space regions in a classically forbidden way, can break conserved quantities in pseudointegrable systems. We rigorously prove that a conserved quantity in a class of…
It was found recently that processes of multidimensional tunneling are generally described at high energies by unstable semiclassical trajectories. We study two observational signatures related to the instability of trajectories. First, we…
Process of quantum tunneling of particles in various physical systems can be effectively controlled even by a weak and slow varying in time electromagnetic signal if to adapt specially its shape to a particular system. During an…
We consider radiative corrections to false vacuum decay within the framework of quantum mechanics for the general potential of the form 1/2 M q^2 (q-A)(q-B), where M , A and B are arbitrary parameters. For this type of potential we provide…
We examine the particle production during tunneling in quantum cosmology. We consider a minisuperspace model with a massive, conformally coupled scalar field and a uniform radiation background. In this model, we construct a semiclassical…
We study the gauge invariance of the decay rate of the false vacuum for the model in which the scalar field responsible for the false vacuum decay has gauge quantum number. In order to calculate the decay rate, one should integrate out the…