Related papers: Thick Wall from Thin Walls
The tunneling potential method to calculate the action for vacuum decay is an alternative to the Euclidean bounce method that has a number of attractive features. In this paper we extend the formalism to general spacetime dimension $d>2$…
The quantum decay of a metastable vacuum is exponentially suppressed by a tunneling action that can be calculated in the semi-classical approximation as the Euclidean action of a bounce that interpolates between the false and true phases.…
This is the first in a series of papers where we study the dynamics of a bubble wall beyond usual approximations, such as the assumptions of spherical bubbles and infinitely thin walls. In this paper, we consider a vacuum phase transition.…
An alternative approach to the calculation of tunneling actions, that control the exponential suppression of the decay of metastable phases, is presented. The new method circumvents the use of bounces in Euclidean space by introducing an…
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 false vacua of some potentials do not decay via Euclidean bounces. This typically happens for tunneling actions with a flat direction (in field configuration space) that is lifted by a perturbation into a sloping valley, pushing the…
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…
We study the Euclidean bounce action interpolating between a false and a true vacuum for a scalar field theory with various types of potential. We focus on the cases of a triangular, a square and a quadratic barrier, where the bounce action…
The Euclidean action is calculated in the thin-wall approximation for a first-order vacuum phase transition in which the bubble appears symmetrically around either a global monopole or a gauge cosmic string. The bubble is assumed to be much…
We consider a single real scalar field in flat spacetime with a polynomial potential up to $\phi^4$, that has a local minimum, the false vacuum, and a deeper global minimum, the true vacuum. When the vacua are almost degenerate we are in…
We develop a new method for estimating the decay probability of the false vacuum via regularized instantons. Namely, we consider the case where the potential is either unbounded from below or the second minimum corresponding to the true…
A tunneling bounce driving the decay of a metastable vacuum must respect an integral constraint dictated by simple scaling arguments that is very useful to determine key properties of the bounce. After illustrating how this works in a…
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…
The Euclidean bounce for vacuum decay enjoys an $O(4)$ symmetry that is lost in the presence of impurities than can catalyze the decay. We present a formulation for the calculation of the tunneling decay action, that is explicitly positive…
A new formulation for obtaining the tunneling action for vacuum decay based on the so-called tunneling potential was developed recently. In the original derivation, the new action was obtained by requiring that its variation led to the…
We study the problem of false vacuum decay in arbitrary dimensions, in the presence of gravity, and compute the transition probability within the thin-wall approximation, generalising the results of Coleman and de Luccia. In the particular…
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…
In the standard lore the decay of the false vacuum of a single-field potential is described by a semi-classical Euclidean bounce configuration that can be found using overshoot/undershoot algorithms, and whose action suppresses…
I present a recap of a fully analytical calculation of the Euclidean action for a self-interacting scalar field with a quartic potential, in the thin-wall approximation. I then apply this result to the coupled fluid-scalar field model, a…
The tunneling decay rate per unit volume in Quantum Field Theory (QFT), at order $\hbar$, is given by $\Gamma/V = Ae^{-B}$, where $B$ is the Euclidean action evaluated at the so-called bounce, and $A$ is proportional to the determinant of a…