Related papers: False vacuum decay and nucleation dynamics in neut…
Distinguishing whether a system supports alternate low-energy (locally stable) states -- stable (true vacuum) versus metastable (false vacuum) -- by direct observation can be difficult when the lifetime of the state is very long but…
We investigate the role played by fast quenching on the decay of metastable (or false vacuum) states. Instead of the exponentially-slow decay rate per unit volume, $\Gamma_{\rm HN} \sim \exp[-E_b/k_BT]$ ($E_b$ is the free energy of the…
We study the nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum jumps in a one-dimensional chain of atoms. Each atom is driven on a strong transition to a short-lived state and on a weak transition to a metastable state. We choose the metastable state to…
We study the process of thermal activation mediated by sphaleron transitions by analyzing the real-time dynamics of the decay out of equilibrium in a $1+1$ dimensional field theory with a metastable state. The situation considered is that…
Non-equilibrium quantum dynamics represents an emerging paradigm for condensed matter physics, quantum information science, and statistical mechanics. Strongly interacting Rydberg atoms offer an attractive platform to study…
The false vacuum is a metastable state that can occur in quantum field theory, and its decay was first studied semi-classically by Coleman. In this work we consider the 1+1 dimensional $\varphi^4$ theory, which is the simplest model that…
We present a mathematical theory of metastable pure states in closed many-body quantum systems with finite-dimensional Hilbert space. Given a Hamiltonian, a pure state is defined to be metastable when all sufficiently local operators either…
We numerically study the evolution of a classical real scalar field in ${(1+1)}$ dimensions with initial conditions describing thermal fluctuations around a metastable vacuum. We track false vacuum decay in real time and compare several…
Strongly interacting many-body systems exhibit collective properties that emerge from complex correlations among microscopic degrees of freedom. These cooperative phenomena govern the non-equilibrium response of quantum systems, with…
Metastability in open system dynamics describes the phenomena of initial relaxation to longlived metastable states before decaying to the asymptotic stable states. It has been predicted in continuous-time stochastic dynamics of both…
Quantum entanglement is crucial for simulating and understanding exotic physics of strongly correlated many-body systems, such as high--temperature superconductors, or fractional quantum Hall states. The entanglement of non-identical…
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…
The quantum decay of a relativistic scalar field from a metastable state ("false vacuum decay") is a fundamental idea in quantum field theory and cosmology. This occurs via local formation of bubbles of true vacuum with their subsequent…
In the framework of open quantum systems, we study the internal dynamics of both freely falling and static two-level atoms interacting with quantized conformally coupled massless scalar field in de Sitter spacetime. We find that the atomic…
We study the decay of a thermally excited metastable vacuum in classical field theory using real-time numerical simulations. We find a significantly lower decay rate than predicted by standard thermal theory at moderate temperatures,…
We present a study of the decay of metastable states of a scalar field via thermal activation, in the presence of a finite density of fermions. The process we consider is the nucleation of ``{\it droplets}'' of true vacuum inside the false…
We present a brief analysis of the crossover phase diagram for the decay of a metastable phase in a simple dynamic lattice-gas model of a two-phase system. We illustrate the nucleation-theoretical analysis with dynamic Monte Carlo…
Metastability is a quintessential feature of first order quantum phase transitions, which is lost either by dynamical instability or by nucleating bubbles of a true vacuum through quantum tunneling. By considering a drive across the first…
Understanding dissipation in 2D quantum many-body systems is a remarkably difficult open challenge. Here we show how numerical simulations for this problem are possible by means of a tensor network algorithm that approximates steady-states…
We study resonant optical excitations of strongly-interacting Rydberg states of atoms in the presence of relaxations. We employ the quantum stochastic (Monte Carlo) wavefunctions to simulate the dissipative dynamics of tens of atoms in…