Effect of gravity on false-vacuum decay rates for O(4)-symmetric bubble nucleation.
Effect of gravity on false-vacuum decay rates for O(4)-symmetric bubble nucleation.
复制标题
重力对 O(4) 对称气泡成核的假真空衰减率的影响。
DOI：
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发表时间：
1991
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Hiscock
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Samuel;Hiscock
量子场的自引力通常被认为是对背景时空的微扰，并且没有太多的物理意义。它的重要性取决于场的质量与普朗克质量的比率，对于我们最熟悉的场来说，这个比率非常小。然而，可以想象的是，无论是在非常早期的宇宙中，还是在今天，假真空衰变都可能与相当大的质量场相关。科尔曼和德卢西亚最初在薄壁近似中研究了自重力对假真空衰变的影响。他们的分析涉及耦合欧几里得场和爱因斯坦方程的近似解，并假设 O(4) 对称气泡成核。在本文中，我们通过将 Coleman-De Luccia 结果与四次多项式势的精确数值结果进行比较，来考虑薄壁近似的有效性范围。我们还将分析扩展到薄壁近似不适用的区域。在最初的德西特空间衰变成闵可夫斯基空间的情况下，我们发现气泡形成的科尔曼-德卢西亚模式和霍金-莫斯转变之间有一个平滑的过渡，其中整个时空隧道“一次”达到潜力的最大值。在初始闵可夫斯基空间衰变到反德西特空间的情况下，我们发现真空势参数存在一个不可能衰变的禁区。在远低于普朗克尺度的能量下，科尔曼和德卢西亚获得的薄壁预测准确地描述了该区域的边界。然而，在接近普朗克尺度的能量下，实际的禁区“明显小于薄壁近似预测的”；因此，真空衰变是可能的，而这似乎是薄壁计算所禁止的。« less
The self-gravity of quantum fields is often considered to be a negligible perturbation upon a background spacetime and not of much physical interest. Its importance is determined by the ratio of the mass of the field to the Planck mass, this ratio being very small for those fields that we are most familiar in dealing with. However, it is conceivable that either in the very early Universe or even today a false-vacuum decay could occur associated with a field of appreciable mass. The effect of self-gravity upon false-vacuum decay was initially studied within the thin-wall'' approximation by Coleman and De Luccia. Their analysis involved the approximate solution of the coupled Euclideanized field and Einstein equations with the assumption of O(4)-symmetric bubble nucleation. In this paper we consider the range of validity of the thin-wall'' approximation by comparing the Coleman--De Luccia results with exact numerical results for a quartic polynomial potential. We also extend the analysis into regimes for which the thin-wall'' approximation is inapplicable. In the case of an initially de Sitter space decaying into Minkowski space, we find a smooth transition between the Coleman--De Luccia mode of bubble formation and the Hawking-Moss transition, wherein the entire spacetime tunnels atmore » once'' to the maximum of the potential. In the case of the decay of an initially Minkowski space to an anti--de Sitter space, we find that there is a forbidden region'' of vacuum potential parameters for which decay is not possible. At energies far below the Planck scale, the boundary of this region is accurately described by the thin-wall prediction obtained by Coleman and De Luccia. At energies near the Planck scale, however, the actual forbidden region'' is significantly smaller than predicted by the thin-wall approximation; thus, vacuum decays are possible which appear to be forbidden by thin-wall calculations.« less