相关论文: A Wrinkle in Coleman - De Luccia

We investigate the decay of current on a superconducting cosmic string through quantum tunneling. We construct the instanton describing tunneling in a simple bosonic string model, and estimate the decay rate. The tunneling rate vanishes in…

We consider the Skyrme model modified by the addition of mass terms which explicitly break chiral symmetry and pick out a specific point on the model's target space as the unique true vacuum. However, they also allow the possibility of…

We have studied numerically the evolution and decay of axion strings. These global defects decay mainly by axion emission and thus contribute to the cosmological axion density. The relative importance of this source relative to misalignment…

We investigate, from a spacetime perspective, some aspects of Horowitz's recent conjecture that black strings may catalyze the decay of Kaluza-Klein spacetimes into a bubble of nothing. We identify classical configurations that interpolate…

We review some topological effects on the construction of string flux-vacua. Specifically we study the effects of brane-flux transitions on the stability of D-branes on a generalized tori compactificaction, the transition that a black hole…

The resonance energy and the transition rate of atoms, molecules and solids were understood as their intrinsic properties in classical electromagnetism. With the development of quantum electrodynamics, it is realized that these quantities…

We describe how 4d de Sitter vacua might emerge from 11d heterotic M-theory. Non-perturbative effects and $G$-fluxes play a crucial role leading to vacua with F-term supersymmetry breaking and a positive energy density. Charged scalar…

We study the effects of gravitationally-driven decoherence on tunneling processes associated with false vacuum decays, such as the Coleman--De~Luccia instanton. We compute the thermal graviton-induced decoherence rate for a wave function…

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 argue that, for generic string compactifications, dark energy is likely to signal the beginning of the end of our universe, perhaps even through decompactification, with possible implications for the cosmological coincidence problem.…

Using the gauge/string duality, we model a heavy quark-antiquark pair in a color singlet state moving through a cold medium and explore the consequences of temperature and velocity on string breaking. We show that the string breaking…

We consider the decay of cosmic strings that are trapped in the false vacuum in a theory of scalar electrodynamics in 3+1 dimensions. We restrict our analysis to the case of thin-walled cosmic strings which occur when large magnetic flux…

A new approach to vacuum decay in quantum field theory, based on a simple variational formulation in field space using a tunneling potential, is ideally suited to study the effects of gravity on such decays. The method allows to prove in…

Vacuum decay in de Sitter space is a process of great physical interest, as it allows to rule out cosmological models in the early and current Universe. Its rate may be described in terms of an instanton in Euclidean space called bounce and…

We consider the quantum treatment of the rolling tachyon background describing the decay of D-branes in the limit of weak string coupling. We focus on the propagation of an open string in the fluctuating background and show how the boundary…

Two new effects of interaction of the gauge string with a homogeneous density of fermions are considered in a gauge model with an anomalous coupling of vector fields with fermions. First, the presence of an induced nonzero magnetic-like…

We use the recently modified Friedmann equations obtained from string T-duality effects that encode the zero-point length (Phys. Lett. B 836 (2023), 137621) to study the phase space analyses of a bouncing early universe. An important…

I argue that string theory compactified on a Riemann surface crosses over at small volume to a higher dimensional background of supercritical string theory. Several concrete measures of the count of degrees of freedom of the theory yield…

We investigate the cosmological signatures of instantons mediating tunneling between de Sitter minima. For generic potentials the Coleman-de Luccia instanton does not necessarily exist; when it does not, the instanton which contributes to…

After reviewing the cosmological constant problem - why is Lambda not huge? - I outline the two basic approaches that had emerged by the late 1980s, and note that each made a clear prediction. Precision cosmological experiments now indicate…