Speaker
Description
Alternative Titles:
1:Vaccum Decay: Bounces, Antibounces and Pseudo-bounces
2:Exploring Vacuum Decay Valleys
In the standard lore the decay of the false vacuum of a single-field potential is
described by a semi-classical Euclidean bounce configuration that can be found using
overshoot/undershoot algorithms, and whose action suppresses exponentially the decay
rate. While this is generically correct, the vacuum decay structure can be far richer.
In some cases there is no bounce and decay proceeds via the so-called pseudo-bounces.
In the general case with bounce, there are 2n+1 bounces, with n ranging from 0 (the
standard case) to ∞. Some of these decays occur via "antibounces" which have the
wrong behavior for overshoot/undershoot algorithms, that can miss them. Bounce and
antibounce configurations form n pairs connected by pseudo-bounces.
