Related papers: Beyond the thin-wall approximation : precise numer…
We develop a method for accurately calculating vacuum decay rates beyond the thin-wall regime in a pure scalar field theory at the one-loop level of the effective action. It accounts for radiative effects resulting from quantum corrections…
We present a fully analytical calculation of the false vacuum decay rate for a self-interacting scalar field in the thin-wall approximation. We obtain the bounce solution, together with the Euclidean action, counter-terms and…
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…
We consider a single real scalar field in flat spacetime with a polynomial potential up to $\phi^4$, that has a local minimum, the false vacuum, and a deeper global minimum, the true vacuum. When the vacua are almost degenerate we are in…
We compute bounce solutions describing false vacuum decay in a Phi**4 model in four dimensions with quantum back-reaction. The back-reaction of the quantum fluctuations on the bounce profiles is computed in the one-loop and Hartree…
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…
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 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 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…
The 'thin-wall approximation' gives a simple estimate of the decay rate of an unstable quantum field. Unfortunately, the approximation is uncontrolled. In this paper I show that there are actually two different thin-wall approximations and…
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 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…
In this paper we show how to compute in a consistent way nucleation rates in field theory at finite temperatures, with metastable vacuum. Using the semiclassical approach in field theory at finite temperature we show that the prefactor term…
We study radiative corrections to the decay rate of false vacua, paying particular attention to the renormalization-scale dependence of the decay rate. The decay rate exponentially depends on the bounce action. The bounce action itself is…
We develop a new iterative method for finding approximate solutions for spherical bounces associated with the decay of the false vacuum in scalar field theories. The method works for any generic potential in any number of dimensions,…
As originally described by Rubakov, particles are produced during the tunneling of a metastable quantum field. We propose to extend his formalism to compute the backreaction of these particles on the semiclassical decay probability of the…
We consider a wave-function approach to the false vacuum decay with gravity and present a new method to calculate the tunneling amplitude under the WKB approximation. The result agrees with the one obtained by the Euclidean path-integral…
We compute bounce solutions describing false vacuum decay in a Phi**4 model in two dimensions in the Hartree approximation, thus going beyond the usual one-loop corrections to the decay rate. We use zero energy mode functions of the…
We use analytic estimates and numerical simulations to explore the stochastic approach to vacuum decay. According to this approach, the time derivative of a scalar field, which is in a local vacuum state, develops a large fluctuation and…
We calculate the false-vacuum decay rate in one-dimensional quantum mechanics on the basis of the saddle-point approximation in the Euclidean path integral at finite temperature. The saddle points are the finite-T and shifted bounce…