Related papers: Metastability in Two Dimensions and the Effective …
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…
The standard bounce formalism for calculating the decay rate of a metastable vacuum cannot be applied to theories in which the symmetry breaking is due to radiative corrections, because in such theories the tree-level action has no bounce…
We investigate the metastability of scalar fields in quantum field theories at finite temperature, focusing on a detailed understanding of the bounce solution. At finite temperature, the bounce solution depends on two variables: the…
The quantum decay of a metastable vacuum is exponentially suppressed by a tunneling action that can be calculated in the semi-classical approximation as the Euclidean action of a bounce that interpolates between the false and true phases.…
We investigate false vacuum decay of a relativistic scalar field initialized in the metastable minimum of an asymmetric double-well potential. The transition to the true ground state is a well-defined initial-value problem in real time,…
The standard vacuum bounce formalism suffers from inconsistencies when applied to thermal bubble nucleation, for which ad hoc workarounds are commonly adopted. Identifying the length scales on which nucleation takes place, we demonstrate…
The decay rate of metastable states is determined at high temperatures by thermal activation, whereas at temperatures close to zero quantum tunneling is relevant. At some temperature $T_{c}$ the transition from classical to…
We examine the computation of the nucleation barrier used in the expression for false vacuum decay rates in finite temperature field theory. By a detailed analysis of the determinantal prefactor, we show that the correct bounce solution…
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 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…
The probability of destruction of a metastable vacuum state by the field of a highly virtual particle with energy $E$ is calculated for a (3+1) dimensional theory in the leading WKB approximation in the thin-wall limit. It is found that the…
In the standard procedure for calculating the decay rate of a metastable vacuum the solution of the classical Euclidean equation of motion of the background field is needed. On the other hand radiative corrections have to be taken into…
The decay rate for a particle in a metastable cubic potential is investigated in the quantum regime by the Euclidean path integral method in semiclassical approximation. The imaginary time formalism allows one to monitor the system as a…
Temperature plays a crucial role in metastable phenomena, not only by contributing to determine the state (phase) of a system, but also ruling the decay probability to more stable states. Such a situation is encountered in many different…
We calculate bubble-nucleation rates for (2+1)-dimensional scalar theories at high temperature. Our approach is based on the notion of a real coarse-grained potential. The region of applicability of our method is determined through internal…
Metastable states decay at zero temperature through quantum tunneling at an exponentially small rate, which depends on the Coleman-de Luccia instanton, also known as bounce. In some theories, the bounce may not exist or its on-shell action…
We consider decay of metastable topological configurations such as strings and domain walls. The transition from a state with higher energy density to a state with lower one proceeds through quantum tunneling or through thermally catalyzed…
The semiclassical Euclidean path integral method is applied to compute the low temperature quantum decay rate for a particle placed in the metastable minimum of a cubic potential in a {\it finite} time theory. The classical path, which…
We compute the decay rate of a metastable cosmic string in contact with a thermal bath by finding the instanton solution. The new feature is that this decay rate is found in the context of non thermal scalar fields in contact with a thermal…
Metastable `false' vacuum states are an important feature of the Standard Model of particle physics and many theories beyond it. Describing the dynamics of a phase transition out of a false vacuum via the nucleation of bubbles is essential…