Speaker
Yvan Ung
(University of Montreal)
Description
We consider the decay of “false kinks,'' that is, kinks formed in a scalar field theory with a pair of degenerate symmetry-breaking false vacua in 1+1 dimensions. The true vacuum is symmetric. A second scalar field and a peculiar potential are added in order for the kink to be classically stable. As with any tunneling event, the rate is proportional to $\exp{-S_E}$ where $S_E$ is the Euclidean action of the bounce describing the tunneling event. This factor varies wildly depending on the parameters of the model. Of interest is the fact that, when the parameters take values arbitrarily close to the “zones of dissociation”, that is, regions in parameter space where $S_E$ can get arbitrarily small, implying that the kink is only barely stable. Thus, while the translation-invariant false vacuum may be very long-lived, the presence of kinks can give rise to accelerated vacuum decay.
Author
Yvan Ung
(University of Montreal)
Co-authors
Luc Marleau
(Université Laval)
Manu Paranjape
(Université de Montréal)
Richard MacKenzie
(U. Montréal)
Yan Gobeil
(McGill University)
Éric Dupuis
(University of Montreal)
