Related papers: The Quantum Sphaleron
We report on a novel phenomenon of particle cosmology, which features specific cosmological phase transitions via quantum tunnelings through multiple vacua. The latter is inspired by the axiverse ideas and enables us to probe the associated…
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…
In quantum gravity, one looks for alternative structures to spacetime physics than ordinary real manifolds. Here, we propose an alternative universal construction containing the latter as an equilibrium state under the action of the…
Transitions from classical to quantum behaviour in a spin system with two degenerate ground states separated by twin energy barriers which are asymmetric due to an applied magnetic field are investigated. It is shown that these transitions…
The pahse transition from instanton-dominated quantum tunneling regime to sphaleron-dominated classical crossover regime is explored in (1+1)-dimensional scalar field theory when spatial coordinate is compactified. It is shown that the type…
The new phase of a gauge theory in which the instantons are ``polarized'', i.e. have the preferred orientation is discussed. A class of gauge theories with the specific condensates of the scalar fields is considered. In these models there…
Quantum tunneling, a phenomenon which has no counterpart in classical physics, is the quantum-mechanical process by which a microscopic particle can transition through a potential barrier even when the energy of the incident particle is…
We consider a new class of instantons in context of quantum field theory of a scalar field coupled with a chaotic background source field. We show how the instanton associated to the quantum tunneling from a metastable false to the true…
The transition from the quantum to the classical regime of the nucleation of the closed Robertson-Walker Universe with spacially homogeneous matter fields is investigated with a perturbation expansion around the sphaleron configuration. A…
Tunneling is an iconic concept that captures the peculiarity of quantum dynamics but, despite its ubiquity, questions remain. We focus on strong-field tunneling, which is vital to all attosecond science. We find an unexpected optical…
We construct a well-defined lattice-regularized quantum theory formulated in terms of fundamental fermion and gauge fields, the same type of degrees of freedom as in the Standard Model. The theory is explicitly invariant under local Lorentz…
In the absence of gravity, one can prove that tunnelling instantons exhibit exactly one negative mode in their spectrum of fluctuations. It is precisely the existence of this tunnelling negative mode that warrants an interpretation of these…
We consider the possibility that tunneling in a degenerate double-well potential in de Sitter spacetime leads to coherent oscillations of quantum probability to find the system in a given well. We concentrate on the case when the mass scale…
We identify instantons representing vacuum decay in a 6-dimensional toy model for string theory flux compactifications, with the two extra dimensions compactified on a sphere. We evaluate the instanton action for tunneling between different…
We study Fubini instantons of a self-gravitating scalar field. The Fubini instanton describes the decay of a vacuum state under tunneling instead of rolling in the presence of a tachyonic potential. The tunneling occurs from the maximum of…
A pure Yang-Mills theory extended by addition of a quartic term is considered in order to study the transition from the quantum tunneling regime to that of classical, i.e. thermal, behaviour. The periodic field configurations are found,…
Quantum gravitational tunneling effects are expected to give rise to a number of interesting observable phenomena, including, in particular, the evolution of black holes at the end of their existence or the emergence of the early universe…
We analyze vacuum tunneling in quantum field theory in a general formalism by using the Wigner representation. In the standard instanton formalism, one usually approximates the initial false vacuum state by an eigenstate of the field…
We show that a quantum phase transition can occur in a phonon system in the presence of dislocations. Due to the competing nature between the topological protection of the dislocation and anharmonicity, phonons can reach a quantum critical…
We consider a system of two semifluxons of opposite polarity in a 0-pi-0 long Josephson junction, which classically can be in one of two degenerate states: up-down or down-up. When the distance $a$ between the 0-pi boundaries (semifluxon's…