Related papers: False Vacuum Decay Induced by Particle Collisions
We use a set of Monte Carlo simulations to follow the cascade produced by a primary electron of energy E_in in the intergalactic medium. We choose E_in=3-10 keV as expected from the decay of one of the most popular Warm Dark Matter (WDM)…
The so-called Klein tunneling is re-examined within the framework of quantum field theory, but from a different point of view on the asymptotic states. We treat it as a one-dimensional scattering process of a fermion incident to a step…
For the theory of a single scalar field $\varphi$ with a quartic potential $V(\varphi)$, we find semi-analytic expressions for the Euclidean action in both four and three dimensions. The action in four dimensions determines the quantum…
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…
A phenomenological model is proposed for a systematic description of the spontaneous fission (SF) half-lives $T_{\rm SF}$ of heavy and super-heavy nuclei. Based on the effective tunneling barrier (ETB), the proposed approach reproduces the…
The tunneling rate, with exact prefactor, is calculated to first order in $\hbar$ for an empty closed Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) universe with decaying cosmological term $\Lambda \sim R^{-m}$ ($R$ is the scale factor and $m$ is a…
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…
We aim at the construction of dark energy models without exotic matter but with a phantom-like equation of state (an effective phantom phase). The first model we consider is decaying vacuum cosmology where the fluctuations of the vacuum are…
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 present a theory of false vacuum decay induced by spherical nucleation seeds. The type of seed considered has a boundary characterised by surface energy terms. The theory applies to false vacuum decay at zero and finite temperatures.…
In recent work, we showed that non-perturbative vacuum effects of a very low mass particle could induce, at a redshift of order 1, a transition from a matter-dominated to an accelerating universe. In that work, we used the simplification of…
We develop a new fully quantum method for determination of widths for nuclear decay by proton emission where multiple internal reflections of wave packet describing tunneling process inside proton--nucleus radial barrier are taken into…
The theory of false vacuum decay in a thermal system may have a cross-over from predominantly thermal transitions to quantum transitions as the temperature is decreased. New numerical methods and results are presented here that can be used…
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…
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…
Last year we argued that if slow-roll inflation followed the decay of a false vacuum in a large landscape, the steepening of the scalar potential between the inflationary plateau and the barrier generically leads to a potentially observable…
We explore the fate of the universe given the possibility that the density associated with `dark energy' may decay slowly with time. Decaying dark energy is modeled by a homogeneous scalar field which couples minimally to gravity and whose…
Dimensional continuation is employed to compute the energy loss rate for a non-relativistic particle moving through a highly ionized plasma. No restriction is made on the charge, mass, or speed of this particle, but it is assumed that the…
We study the collision dynamics of localized oscillons in two classes of $(1+1)$-dimensional scalar field theories with metastable false vacua, a normal class with a positive quartic self-interaction term and an inverted class with a…
The tunneling Hamiltonian has proven to be a useful method in many body physics to treat particle tunneling between different states represented as wave functions. Here we present a generalization of the tunneling Hamiltonian to quantum…