Related papers: Vacuum decay and internal symmetries
Quantum decay of a relativistic scalar field from a false vacuum is a fundamental idea in quantum field theory. It is relevant to models of the early Universe, where the nucleation of bubbles gives rise to an inflationary universe and the…
We discuss non-perturbative instabilities, mediated by bubbles of nothing, in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence. By exploring the phase diagram of such decays we give an interpretation of the process in terms of an effective…
We describe an equilibrium state of a rotating trapped atomic condensate, which is characterized by a non-zero internal circulation and spontaneous breaking of the rotational O(2) symmetry with all three major semiaxes of the condensate…
We construct second-quantized (field) theories on coset spaces of pseudo-unitary groups U(p,q)$. The existence of degenerated quantum vacua (coherent states of zero modes) leads to a breakdown of the original pseudo-unitary symmetry. The…
The structure of entanglement in the ground state of the harmonic chain is studied. A class of two-mode squeezed states, useful for this purpose, is identified. The entanglement of the local modes at the ends of the chain, after tracing out…
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 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.…
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…
We consider a model where a scalar field develops a metastable vacuum state and weakly interacts with another scalar field. In this situation we find the probability of decay of the false vacuum stimulated by the presence and collisions of…
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…
We study the quantum correlations of free scalar field with vacuum ambiguity of de Sitter space. We show the occurrence of degradation of quantum entanglement and quantum discord between field modes for inertial observer in curved space due…
Spontaneous symmetry breaking is studied within a simple version of the light-front sigma model with fermions. Its vacuum structure is derived by an implementation of global symmetries in terms of unitary operators in a finite volume with…
To formulate the zero modes in a finite-size system with spontaneous breakdown of symmetries in quantum field theory is not trivial, for in the naive Bogoliubov theory, one encounters difficulties such as phase diffusion, the absence of a…
Ultracold atomic gases can undergo phase transitions that mimic relativistic vacuum decay, allowing us to empirically test early-Universe physics in tabletop experiments. We investigate the physics of these analog systems, going beyond…
In this work we theoretically investigate the false vacuum decay process in a ferromagnetic quantum spin-1/2 chain. We develop a many-body theory describing the nucleation and the coherent dynamics of true-vacuum bubbles that is…
A complex eigenvalue in the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations for a stationary Bose-Einstein condensate in ultracold atomic system indicates the dynamical instability of the system. We also have the modes with zero eigenvalues for the…
In the context of bubble universes produced by a first-order phase transition with large nucleation rates compared to the inverse dynamical time scale of the parent bubble, we extend the usual analysis to non-vacuum backgrounds. In…
Theories with more than one vacuum allow quantum transitions between them, which may proceed via bubble nucleation; theories with more than two vacua posses additional decay modes in which the wall of a bubble may further decay. The…
We present a calculation of thick-wall Coleman-de-Luccia (CdL) bounces in the Standard Model effective potential in a de Sitter background. The calculation is performed including the effect of the bounce back-reaction on the metric, which…
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…