Related papers: False Vacuum Decay With Gravity in Non-Thin-Wall L…
We revisit the famous Coleman-de Luccia formalism for decay of false vacuum in gravitational theory. Since the corresponding wave function is time-independent we argue that its instanton's interpretation as the decay rate probability is…
Extracting information about a system's metastable ground state energy employing functional methods usually hinges on utilizing the late-time behavior of the Euclidean propagator, practically impeding the possibility of determining decay…
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…
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…
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 Wheeler-DeWitt equation is investigated and used to examine a state after a quantum tunneling with gravity. To make arguments definite we treat a discretized version of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation and adopt the WKB method. We expand an…
We present the calculation of the Feynman path integral in real time for tunneling in quantum mechanics and field theory, including the first quantum corrections. For this purpose, we use the well-known fact that Euclidean saddle points in…
The tunneling wave function of the universe is calculated exactly for a de Sitter minisuperspace model with a massless conformally coupled scalar field, both by solving the Wheeler-DeWitt equation and by evaluating the Lorentzian path…
In quantum cosmology, one often considers tunneling phenomena which may have occurred in the early universe. Processes requiring quantum penetration of a potential barrier include black hole pair creation and the decay of vacuum domain…
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…
The tunneling probability for a system modelling macroscopic quantum tunneling is computed. We consider an open quantum system with one degree of freedom consisting of a particle trapped in a cubic potential interacting with an environment…
There are several exotic tunneling processes that can be realized only by incorporating the effect of gravity. Here, we point out that we encounter difficulties in constructing the WKB wave function, once we try to describe quantum…
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 Wheeler-DeWitt equation for the induced gravity theory is constructed in the minisuperspace approximation, and then solved using the WKB method under three types of boundary condition proposed respectively by Hartle & Hawking (``no…
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…
We present a new method for calculating quantum tunneling rates using lattice Monte Carlo simulations in imaginary time. This method is designed with the goal of studying false vacuum decay non-perturbatively on the lattice. We derive a new…
We derive a closed-form false vacuum decay rate at one loop in the thin wall limit, where the true and false vacua are nearly degenerate. We obtain the bounce configuration in $D$ dimensions, together with the Euclidean action with a higher…
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…
This paper studies the decay of a large, closed domain wall in a closed universe. Such walls can form in the presence of a broken, discrete symmetry. We introduce a novel process of quantum decay for such a wall, in which the vacuum…
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…