Analog vacuum decay from vacuum initial conditions

Abstract

Ultracold atomic gases can undergo phase transitions that mimic relativistic vacuum decay, allowing us to empirically test early-Universe physics in tabletop experiments. We investigate the physics of these analog systems, going beyond previous analyses of the classical equations of motion to study quantum fluctuations in the cold-atom false vacuum. We show that the fluctuation spectrum of this vacuum state agrees with the usual relativistic result in the regime where the classical analogy holds, providing further evidence for the suitability of these systems for studying vacuum decay. Using a suite of semiclassical lattice simulations, we simulate bubble nucleation from this analog vacuum state in a 1D homonuclear potassium-41 mixture, finding qualitative agreement with instanton predictions. We identify realistic parameters for this system that will allow us to study vacuum decay with current experimental capabilities, including a prescription for efficiently scanning over decay rates, and show that this setup will probe the quantum (rather than thermal) decay regime at temperatures $T\lesssim 10\mathrm{nK}$. Our results help lay the groundwork for using upcoming cold-atom experiments as a new probe of nonperturbative early-Universe physics.

arXiv comment17 pages, 11 figures, matches version published in PRD

References in corpus (65)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Array Programming with NumPy
• Feshbach Resonances in Ultracold Gases
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Evidence for a Gravitational-Wave Background
• Higgs mass and vacuum stability in the Standard Model at NNLO
• Investigating the near-criticality of the Higgs boson
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array III. Search for gravitational wave signals
• Science with the space-based interferometer eLISA. II: Gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions
• Progress in Electroweak Baryogenesis
• Gravitational Radiation from First-Order Phase Transitions
• Electroweak baryogenesis
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Search for Signals from New Physics
• Periodically-driven quantum systems: Effective Hamiltonians and engineered gauge fields
• Bose-Einstein condensation of atoms in a uniform potential
• Dynamics and statistical mechanics of ultra-cold Bose gases using c-field techniques
• Dynamical quantum noise in Bose-Einstein condensates
• Classical decay of inflaton
• Strongly enhanced inelastic collisions in a Bose-Einstein condensate near Feshbach resonances
• Eternal inflation and its implications
• Engineering Ising-XY spin models in a triangular lattice via tunable artificial gauge fields
• Feshbach resonances in rubidium 87: Precision measurement and analysis
• Oscillons After Inflation
• The Probable Fate of the Standard Model
• LATTICEEASY: A Program for Lattice Simulations of Scalar Fields in an Expanding Universe
• Lattice study of classical inflaton decay
• Quantum Gases in Optical Boxes
• The Universe after inflation: the wide resonance case
• Resonant decay of Bose condensates
• Itinerant magnetism in spin-orbit coupled Bose gases
• Very high precision bound state spectroscopy near a ${}^{85}$Rb Feshbach resonance
• Inflaton Fragmentation and Oscillon Formation in Three Dimensions
• Observation of Quantum Phase Transitions with Parity-Symmetry Breaking and Hysteresis
• Non-Gaussian Spikes from Chaotic Billiards in Inflation Preheating
• Robustness of Inflation to Inhomogeneous Initial Conditions
• The art of simulating the early Universe -- Part I
• CosmoLattice
• Towards observable signatures of other bubble universes
• Determination of atomic scattering lengths from measurements of molecular binding energies near Feshbach resonances
• Characterization of elastic scattering near a Feshbach resonance in rubidium 87
• First Observational Tests of Eternal Inflation
• Electroweak preheating on a lattice
• A New Semiclassical Picture of Vacuum Decay
• Fate of the false vacuum: towards realization with ultra-cold atoms
• First Observational Tests of Eternal Inflation: Analysis Methods and WMAP 7-Year Results
• Simulating seeded vacuum decay in a cold atom system
• Realizing discontinuous quantum phase transitions in a strongly-correlated driven optical lattice
• Feshbach resonances in ultracold 85Rb
• Towards the cold atom analog false vacuum
• The universe on a table top: engineering quantum decay of a relativistic scalar field from a metastable vacuum
• Nonlinear Dynamics of the Cold Atom Analog False Vacuum
• Observation of generalized Kibble-Zurek mechanism across a first-order quantum phase transition in a spinor condensate
• Accurate Determination of Hubble Attenuation and Amplification in Expanding and Contracting Cold-Atom Universes
• Experimental Observation of Curved Light-Cones in a Quantum Field Simulator
• Simulating cosmological supercooling with a cold atom system
• Quantum simulations of the early universe
• The fate of the false vacuum: Finite temperature, entropy and topological phase in quantum simulations of the early universe
• Pinpointing Feshbach Resonances and Testing Efimov Universalities in ${}^{39}$K
• Methods for Preparing Quantum Gases of Lithium
• Quantitative Analysis of the Stochastic Approach to Quantum Tunneling
• Ferromagnetism in an extended coherently-coupled atomic superfluid
• False vacuum decay in an ultracold spin-1 Bose gas
• Active stabilization of kilogauss magnetic fields to the ppm level for magnetoassociation on ultranarrow Feshbach resonances
• Bubble Clustering in Cosmological First Order Phase Transitions
• Mass Renormalization in Lattice Simulations of False Vacuum Decay
• Bubble nucleation in a cold spin 1 gas

Cited by in corpus (12)

• A nonperturbative test of nucleation calculations for strong phase transitions
• False vacuum decay rates, more precisely
• Bubble velocities and oscillon precursors in first-order phase transitions
• False vacuum decay and nucleation dynamics in neutral atom systems
• Generalized cold-atom simulators for vacuum decay
• Cosmological particle production in a quantum field simulator as a quantum mechanical scattering problem
• Long-lived oscillations of metastable states in neutral atom systems
• Ultracold atomic spin mixtures in ultrastable magnetic field environments
• Bubbles in a box: Eliminating edge nucleation in cold-atom simulators of vacuum decay
• Quantum backreaction effect in optical solitons
• Nondestructive optomechanical detection scheme for Bose-Einstein condensates
• Emergent quantum field theories on curved spacetimes in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates: from scalar to Proca fields