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arXiv · gr-qc/9905093

False vacuum decay in de Sitter space-time

V. A. Rubakov·S. M. Sibiryakov
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Abstract

We suggest a technique that explicitly accounts for the structure of an initial state of quantum field in the semiclassical calculations of path integral in curved space-time, and consider decay of metastable state (conformal vacuum of scalar particles above false classical vacuum) in background de Sitter space-time as an example. Making use of this technique, we justify the Coleman-De Luccia approach to the calculation of the decay probability. We propose an interpretation of the Hawking-Moss instanton as a limiting case of constrained instantons. We find that an inverse process of the transition from true vacuum to false one is allowed in de Sitter space-time, and calculate the corresponding probability.

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BibTeXRIS

V. A. Rubakov, S. M. Sibiryakov. 1999-05-25. False vacuum decay in de Sitter space-time. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02557243

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