Bubble nucleation and quantum initial conditions in classical statistical simulations

Abstract

Classical-statistical lattice simulations provide a useful approximation to out-of-equilibrium quantum field theory, but only for systems exhibiting large occupation numbers, and only for phenomena that are not intrinsically quantum mechanical in nature. In certain special circumstances, it can be appropriate to initialize such real-time simulations with quantum-like zero-point fluctuations. We will revisit these points, and investigate reports that quantum bubble nucleation rates in 1+1 dimensions can be computed through the classical evolution of such a quantum-like initial condition. We find that although intriguing, the reported numerical agreement between classical-statistical simulations and the quantum nucleation rate in 1+1 dimensions is a coincidence, which is not specific to this choice of initialisation, is parameter and lattice cut-off dependent and disappears as the number of space-dimensions increases from 1+1 to 2+1

arXiv comment27 pages, 19 figures

References in corpus (29)

• Towards the Theory of Reheating After Inflation
• Dynamics of Symmetry Breaking and Tachyonic Preheating
• Nonperturbative Dynamics Of Reheating After Inflation: A Review
• CosmoTransitions: Computing Cosmological Phase Transition Temperatures and Bubble Profiles with Multiple Fields
• Introduction to Nonequilibrium Quantum Field Theory
• Structure of Resonance in Preheating after Inflation
• The Sphaleron Rate in the Minimal Standard Model
• Hard-Loop Dynamics of Non-Abelian Plasma Instabilities
• Non-equilibrium electroweak baryogenesis from preheating after inflation
• Thermalization of Quantum Fields from Time-Reversal Invariant Evolution Equations
• Classical aspects of quantum fields far from equilibrium
• Symmetry Breaking and False Vacuum Decay after Hybrid Inflation
• Classical approximation for time dependent quantum field theory: diagrammatic analysis for hot scalar fields
• Bottom-up isotropization in classical-statistical lattice gauge theory
• Electroweak Bubble Nucleation, Nonperturbatively
• Tachyonic preheating using 2PI-1/N dynamics and the classical approximation
• Non-abelian plasma instabilities for strong anisotropy
• Baryon asymmetry from electroweak tachyonic preheating
• Equilibration in phi^4 theory in 3+1 dimensions
• Classical Sphaleron Rate on Fine Lattices
• Electroweak preheating on a lattice
• A New Semiclassical Picture of Vacuum Decay
• Chern-Simons number asymmetry from CP violation at electroweak tachyonic preheating
• Quantum and Classical Behavior in Interacting Bosonic Systems
• Non-perturbative computation of the bubble nucleation rate in the cubic anisotropy model
• Quantum tunnelling, real-time dynamics and Picard-Lefschetz thimbles
• Quantitative Analysis of the Stochastic Approach to Quantum Tunneling
• Looking for defects in the 2PI correlator
• Counting defects with the two-point correlator