Related papers: Vacuum decay in quantum field theory
We consider an open universe created by bubble nucleation, and study possible effects of an "ancestor vacuum" (de Sitter space in which bubble nucleation occurred) on the present universe. We compute vacuum expectation values of…
We consider a $\lambda \phi^4$ theory in Minkowski spacetime. We compute a "coarse grained effective action" by integrating out the field modes with wavelength shorter than a critical value. From this effective action we obtain the…
Long-range effective methods are ubiquitous in physics and in quantum theory, in particular. Furthermore, the reliability of such methods is higher when the nature of short-ranged interactions need not be modeled explicitly. This may be…
We analyze a variant of the Desai-Zwanzig model [J. Stat. Phys. {\bf 19}1-24 (1978)]. In particular, we study stationary states of the mean field limit for a system of weakly interacting diffusions moving in a multi-well potential energy…
The fundamental vacuum state of quantum fields, related to Minkowski space, produces divergent fluctuations that must be suppressed in order to bring reality to the description of physical systems. As a consequence, negative vacuum…
A new definition of the Wigner function for quantum fields coupled to curved space--time and an external Yang--Mills field is studied on the example of a scalar and a Dirac fields. The definition uses the formalism of the tangent bundles…
We introduce the Wigner functional representing a quantum field in terms of the field amplitudes and their conjugate momenta. The equation of motion for the functional of a scalar field point out the relevance of solutions of the classical…
Understanding mechanisms capable of altering the vacuum energy is currently of interest in field theories and cosmology. We consider an interacting scalar field and show that the vacuum energy naturally takes any value between its maximum…
We consider the effect of the magnetic field background in the form of a tube of the finite transverse size on the vacuum of the quantized charged massive scalar field which is subject to the Dirichlet boundary condition at the edge of the…
We investigate quantum chromodynamics in 2+1 dimensions ($\rm{QCD}_3$) using the Hamiltonian lattice field theory approach. The long wavelength structure of the ground state, which is closely related to the confinement phenomenon, is…
A consistency condition of general relativity as an effective field theory in Minkowskian background uniquely fixes the value of the cosmological constant. In two-loop calculations, including the interaction of gravitons with matter fields,…
We treat the effects of quantum field fluctuations on the decay of a meta-stable state of a self-coupled scalar field. We consider two varieties of field fluctuations and their potential effects in a semiclassical description. The first are…
We study false vacuum decay for a gauged complex scalar field in a polynomial potential with nearly degenerate minima. Radiative corrections to the profile of the nucleated bubble as well as the full decay rate are computed in the planar…
We investigate the behavior of self-propelled particles in infinite space dimensions by comparing two powerful approaches in many-body dynamics: the Fokker-Planck equation and dynamical mean-field theory. The dynamics of the particles at…
We develop an approach to investigate the non-perturbative dynamics of quantum field theories, in which specific vacuum field fluctuations are treated as the low-energy dynamical degrees of freedom, while all other vacuum field…
We determine the form of the Wigner functional for several types of quantum free field theories in order to analyze the representation of QFT in phase space, as well as to compare it to other mainstream formulations. We use Jackiw's…
The Heisenberg-Euler theory of the quantum vacuum supplements Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism with nonlinear light-light interactions. These originate in vacuum fluctuations, a key prediction of quantum theory, and can be triggered by…
Recently, questions have been raised about the role of Lorentz invariance in false vacuum decay. It has been argued that infinities may arise in an integration over Lorentz-boosted final states. This suggestion motivates a Minkowski-space…
We build quantum field theory on the thermodynamic master equation for dissipative quantum systems. The vacuum is represented by a thermodynamic equilibrium state in the low-temperature limit. All regularization is consistently provided by…
We present a systematic and unifying treatment of the problem of spontaneous nucleation of particle-antiparticle pairs in a (2+1)-dimensional system due to a static and uniform electromagnetic-like field, in the presence of quantum…