Related papers: A Unified View of Vacuum Decay Channels
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…
The Hartle-Hawking and Tunneling (Vilenkin) wave functions are treated in the Hamiltonian formalism. We find that the leading (i.e. quadratic) terms in the fluctuations around a maximally symmetric background, are indeed Gaussian (rather…
The ground state of Bose-Einstein condensates with attractive particle interaction is metastable. One of the decay mechanisms of the condensate is a collapse by macroscopic quantum tunneling, which can be described by the bounce trajectory…
We compute bounce solutions describing false vacuum decay in a Phi**4 model in four dimensions with quantum back-reaction. The back-reaction of the quantum fluctuations on the bounce profiles is computed in the one-loop and Hartree…
We review the description of tunnelling phenomena in the semi-classical approximation in ordinary quantum mechanics and in quantum field theory. In particular, we describe in detail the calculation, up to the first quantum corrections, of…
Starting from trace formulae for the tunnelling splittings (or decay rates) analytically continued in the complex time domain, we obtain explicit semiclassical expansions in terms of complex trajectories that are selected with appropriate…
The tunneling wave function of the universe is investigated in a minisuperspace framework of a de Sitter universe with a quantum scalar field, treated as a perturbation. We consider three different approaches to defining the tunneling wave…
Various aspects of time-dependent processes are studied within the large N approximation of O(N) vector models in three dimensions. These include the rolling of fields, the tunneling and decay of vacua. We present an exact solution for the…
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…
A longstanding challenge in the foundations of quantum mechanics is the verification of alternative collapse theories despite their mathematical similarity to decoherence. To this end, we suggest a novel method based on dynamical…
In present work, we present a couple-channel formalism for the description of tunneling time of a quantum particle through a composite compound with multiple energy levels or a complex structure that can be reduced to a…
We introduce the "wedge diagram," an intuitive way to illustrate how cosmological models with a classical (non-singular) bounce generically resolve fundamental problems in cosmology. These include the well-known horizon, flatness, and…
We analyze the canonical quantum dynamics of the isotropic Universe in a metric approach by adopting a self-interacting scalar field as relational time. When the potential term is absent we are able to associate the the expanding and…
Experimentally observable Quantum Accelerator Modes are used as a test case for the study of some general aspects of quantum decay from classical stable islands immersed in a chaotic sea. The modes are shown to correspond to metastable…
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 use some exact results in the scalar field theory to revise the analysis by Coleman and Callan about the false vacuum decay and propose a simple non-perturbative formalism. We introduce exact Green's function which incorporates…
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 compute tunneling in a quantum field theory in 1+1 dimensions for a field potential $U(\Phi)$ of the asymmetric double well type. The system is localized initially in the ``false vacuum''. We consider the case of a {\em compact space}…
The most unstable quantum states and elementary particles possess more than a single decay channel. At the same time, it is well known that typically the decay law is not simply exponential. Therefore, it is natural to ask how to spot the…
We investigate the negative modes about Coleman-De Luccia bounces governing vacuum transitions in de Sitter space, with the goal of gaining physical insight into the various anomalous results associated with these that have been reported in…