How to Run Through Walls: dynamics of bubble collisions

by Eugene Lim (DAMTP, Cambridge)

Monday 28 Mar 2011, 13:30 → 14:30 Europe/Stockholm

CoPS group room (A5:1041)

For three decades, the standard mechanism in quantum field theory for the escape of a field trapped in meta-stable vacuum to its true vacuum is the Coleman-deLuccia instanton -- a spherical bubble-like patch of some homogenous field sitting in the false vacuum quantum mechanically "tunnels" into its true vacuum, creating an open universe within. In this seminar, I will describe a completely new way of nucleating cosmological bubbles -- energy stored in relativistic bubble walls can provide sufficient kick to force the constituent field to go over a potential barrier and nucleate a new coherent bubble. While this mechanism is most clearly demonstrated with high resolution numerical simulations in 3+1 dimensions, I will show that there is a simple semi-analytic description of the transition. In particular, I will argue that bubble collisions generically do not lead to catastrophic destruction of the bubble walls, but instead provide a non-probabilistic method of scanning the potential landscape. If time permits, I will also discuss the sequel "How to Flow Through Funnels", based on recent results of flux transitions tunneling through conifold points.