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 particles of the second field. The discussed calculation is an illustration of the recently suggested thermal approach to treatment of induced semiclassical processes.
We consider the classical static soliton solutions of the Skyrme model with false vacuum potential. We make use of fully three-dimensional relaxation calculations to construct global energy minimizers in the sectors of topological degrees from $Q=1$ to $Q=6$. These solutions may be metastable, they contain a domain of true vacuum inside the core. Further, we explore small regions of negative topological charge density which appear for the Skyrmions of degrees $Q=3,5,6$.
False vacuum decay around black holes: calculation from first principles in the (3+1)-dimensional case
Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences（俄罗斯科学院核物理研究所）；Physics Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University（莫斯科国立大学物理系）；Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology（莫斯科物理技术学院）；Institute for Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, MSU（莫斯科国立大学理论与数学物理研究所）
We introduce a new picture of vacuum decay which, in contrast to existing semiclassical techniques, provides a real-time description and does not rely on classically-forbidden tunneling paths. Using lattice simulations, we observe vacuum decay via bubble formation by generating realizations of vacuum fluctuations and evolving with the classical equations of motion. The decay rate obtained from an ensemble of simulations is in excellent agreement with existing techniques. Future applications include bubble correlation functions, fast decay rates, and decay of non-vacuum states.
Recently, a novel phenomenon is observed for vacuum decay to proceed via classically allowed dynamical evolution from initial configurations of false vacuum fluctuations. With the help of some occasionally developed large fluctuations in time derivative of a homogeneous scalar field that is initially sitting at the false vacuum, the flyover vacuum decay is proposed if the initial Gaussian profile of field velocity contains a spatial region where the field velocity is large enough to flyover the potential barrier. In this paper, we point out that, even if the initial profile of field velocity i…
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 false vacua, local minima of the potential energy. These false vacuum configurations admit metastable skyrmions, which we call false skyrmions. False skyrmions can decay due to quantum tunnelling, consequently causing the decay of the false vacuum. We compute the rate of decay of the false vacuum due to the existence of false skyrmions.
We study a false vacuum decay in a two-dimensional black hole spacetime background. The decay rate in the case that nucleation site locates at a black hole center has been calculated in the literature. We develop a method for calculating the decay rate of the false vacuum for a generic nucleation site. We find that the decay rate becomes larger when the nucleation site is close to the black hole horizon and coincides with that in Minkowski spacetime when the nucleation site goes to infinity.
We investigate the effects of vacuum polarization on vacuum static spherically-symmetric spacetimes. We start from the Polyakov approximation to the renormalized stress-energy tensor (RSET) of a minimally coupled massless scalar field. This RSET is not regular at $r=0$, so we define a regularized version of the Polyakov RSET. Using this Regularized RSET, and under the previous symmetry assumptions, we find all the solutions to the semiclassical field equations in vacuum. The resulting counterpart to the Schwarzschild classical geometry substitutes the presence of an event horizon by a wormhole…
In general, the Gibbons-Hawking temperature based on the Euclidean functional approach shows that de Sitter space in the Bunch-Davies vacuum is globally thermal. In the exactly soluble semiclassical Jackiw-Teitelboim model, we investigate thermal property of de Sitter space by taking into account the quantum back reaction of the geometry. The proper temperature of de Sitter space in the Bunch-Davies vacuum is found to vanish. In case of a certain quantum state breaking the de Sitter symmetry, de Sitter space can be made thermally exited; however, in this case the dilaton singularity cannot be …
Radiative corrections to false vacuum decay in quantum mechanics
本文在量子力学的框架内，考虑了形式为1/2 M q ^2（q-A）（q-B）的广义势对假真空衰变的辐射修正，其中M、A和B是任意参数。对于这类势，我们给出了相应反弹解背景下格林函数的解析结果以及假真空衰减率的单圈表达式。接下来，我们讨论了假真空衰减率的高阶修正的计算，并提供了两个和三个回路贡献的数值表达式。
The abundance of the QCD axion is known to be suppressed if the Hubble parameter during inflation, $H_{\rm inf}$, is lower than the QCD scale, and if the inflation lasts sufficiently long. We show that the tight upper bound on the inflation scale can be significantly relaxed if the eternal old inflation is driven by the standard-model Higgs field trapped in a false vacuum at large field values. Specifically, $H_{\rm inf}$ can be larger than $100\,$GeV if the false vacuum is located above the intermediate scale. We also discuss the slow-roll inflation after the tunneling from the false vacuum t…
Recently it was discovered that the Standard Model vacuum may suffer an essential metastability near the Planck scale. In this regard it makes sense to study in more detail the decay processes of the metastable vacuum and to develop methods for their more accurate analysis. In this article we develop a technique to calculate two loop radiative corrections to false vacuum decay rate in thin-wall approximation and apply it to false vacuum decay in scalar quantum field theory with cubic and quartic interactions. The results obtained use dimensional regularization and given in two different renorm…
We propose an ultracold atom analogue of early universe vacuum decay using all three states of a spin-1 Bose gas. We consider a one-dimensional system with both radio frequency and optical Raman coupling between internal states. An advantage of our proposal is the lack of a time-modulated coupling, which can lead to instabilities. Within the elaborate phase structure of the system we identify an effective Klein-Gordon field and use Gross-Pitaevskii simulations within the truncated Wigner approximation to model the decay of its false vacuum. We examine the dependence of the rate of vacuum decay…
We study the decay rate of a false vacuum in gauge theory at the one-loop level. We pay particular attention to the case where the bounce consists of an arbitrary number of scalar fields. With a multi-field bounce, which has a curved trajectory in the field space, the mixing among the gauge fields and the scalar fields evolves along the path of the bounce in the field space and the one-loop calculation of the vacuum decay rate becomes complicated. We consider the one-loop contribution to the decay rate with an arbitrary choice of the gauge parameter, and obtain a gauge invariant expression of …
We consider radiative corrections to false vacuum decay in a four-dimensional scalar field theory with cubic and quartic potential. Using planar thin wall approximation we were able to get analytical expression for the decay rate up to two loop order. The results obtained employ dimensional regularization and $\overline{MS}$ renormalization scheme.
We present a simple and intuitive description of both, the Schwinger effect and false vacuum decay through bubble nucleation, as tunneling problems in one-dimensional relativistic quantum mechanics. Both problems can be described by an effective potential that depends on a single variable of dimension length, which measures the separation of the particles in the Schwinger pair, or the radius of a bubble for the vacuum decay. We show that both problems can be described as tunneling in one-dimensional quantum mechanics if one interprets this variable as the position of a relativistic particle wi…
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 cosmology. The geometry of spacetime complicates the interpretation of the decay rate of a metastable vacuum. However, the effects of curvature can still be studied in the particular case where backreaction is neglected. We compute the imaginary part of the action in de Sitter space, including the one-loop and the gradient corrections. We use two independent metho…
We analyse vacuum decay in rotating BTZ black hole spacetimes with the thin wall approximation. Possible parameter regions for the vacuum decay are clarified. We find that the nucleation rate is dominated by the bounce solution with the static shell configuration. The nucleation rate of the static shell decreases with the mass of the initial black hole. For a larger/smaller value of the initial black hole, the nucleation rate can be smaller/larger than that of the Coleman De Luccia vacuum decay in the pure AdS spacetime. Through the vacuum decay, the black hole gains its mass and loses the hor…
