Speaker
Robson Christie
(University of Portsmouth)
Description
I will discuss vacuum selection for a spectator scalar field in an asymmetric double-well potential during inflation, including environmental decoherence. Using numerically solved master equations, we show that the ratio between the inflationary Hubble scale and the spectator mass controls which vacuum is selected: heavy fields relax to the true vacuum, while light fields display greatly enhanced false vacuum occupation. Decoherence suppresses interference and tunnelling, effectively locking the field into its stochastically selected minimum and stabilizing light false vacua on inflationary timescales. I am presenting the results of a joint work with Jaewoo Joo, Greg Kaplenek, Vincent Vennin and David Wands.: arXiv:2512.14204 [hep-th]