Generalised escape paths for dynamical tunneling in QFT

Abstract

We present a formalism based on the functional Schrödinger equation to analyse time-dependent tunneling in quantum field theory at the semi-classical level. The full problem is reduced step by step to a finite dimensional quantum mechanical setup and solved using the WKB approximation. As an example, we consider tunneling from a homogeneous oscillating initial state in scalar quantum field theory.

34 pages, 2 figures