相关论文: Vacuum decay in the Lorentzian path integral

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…

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…

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 discuss an exact false vacuum decay rate at one loop for a real and complex scalar field in a quartic-quartic potential with two tree-level minima. The bounce solution is used to compute the functional determinant from both fluctuations.…

We develop semiclassical methods for studying bubble nucleation in models with parameters that vary slowly in time. Introducing a more general rotation of the time contour allows access to a larger set of final states, and typically a…

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 speculate about the spacetime description due to the presence of Lorentzian wormholes (handles in spacetime joining two distant regions or other universes) in quantum gravity. The semiclassical rate of production of these Lorentzian…

We study the effects of a fixed de Sitter geometry background in scenarios of false vacuum decay. It is currently understood that bubble nucleation processes associated with first order phase transitions are particularly important in…

Using the 2PI effective action formalism, we study false vacuum decay beyond the quadratic approximation of the path integral. We derive a coupled system of equations for the bounce and the propagator, and we compute a semi-analytic…

We study zero-temperature false vacuum decay in $D$ compact spatial dimensions and show that for volumes below a critical value a new bounce solution, different from Coleman's celebrated $O(D)$ bubble, mediates the decay process, 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…

We investigate the role of nonperturbative, bubble-like inhomogeneities on the decay rate of false-vacuum states in two and three-dimensional scalar field theories. The inhomogeneities are induced by setting up large-amplitude oscillations…

We investigate and classify the possible types of false vacuum bubbles in Einstein gravity. The false vacuum bubbles can occur only if gravity is taken into account. We show that there exist solutions only with compact geometries. The…

The rate and manner of vacuum decay are calculated in an explicit flux compactification, including all thick-wall and gravitational effects. For landscapes built of many units of a single flux, the fastest decay is usually to discharge just…

False vacuum decay in quantum mechanical first order phase transitions is a phenomenon with wide implications in cosmology, and presents interesting theoretical challenges. In the standard approach, it is assumed that false vacuum decay…

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…

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 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…

We present a general numerical method for computing precisely the false vacuum decay rate, including the prefactor due to quantum fluctuations about the classical bounce solution, in a self-interacting scalar field theory modeling the…

In the decay process of metastable vacua in quantum field theories, the bounce solution, a classical solution in Euclideanized theories, is helpful in calculating the decay rate. Recently, the bounce solution with a conical singularity has…