Parametrized Path Approach to Vacuum Decay
arXiv:1911.12765 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.101.045021
Abstract
We develop a new real-time approach to vacuum decay based on a reduction to a finite number of degrees of freedom. The dynamics is followed by solving a generalized Schrödinger equation. We first apply this method to a real scalar field in Minkowski space and compare the decay rate with that obtained by the instanton approach. The main difference is in the early-time dynamics, where the decay is faster due to the tail of the wave function. We then apply it to a cold atom model recently proposed to simulate vacuum decay experimentally. This approach will be extended to include gravity in a future work.
19 pages, 13 figures, close to the version accepted for publication in PRD
References in corpus (8)
- False Vacuum Decay Catalyzed by Black Holes
- Fate of the false vacuum: towards realization with ultra-cold atoms
- The universe on a table top: engineering quantum decay of a relativistic scalar field from a metastable vacuum
- How to Wick rotate generic curved spacetime
- Negative modes of Coleman-De Luccia bounces
- Real-Time Feynman Path Integral Realization of Instantons
- Resonant Tunneling in Scalar Quantum Field Theory
- Gravitational Decoupling and Picard-Lefschetz