%0 Electronic Article
%A Batini, Laura
%A Chatrchyan, Aleksandr
%A Berges, Jürgen
%T Real-time dynamics of false vacuum decay
%N DESY-23-158
%M PUBDB-2023-06184
%M DESY-23-158
%M arXiv:2310.04206
%D 2023
%X We investigate false vacuum decay of a relativistic scalar field initialized in the metastable minimum of an asymmetric double-well potential. The transition to the true ground state is a well-defined initial-value problem in real time, which can be formulated in nonequilibrium quantum field theory on a closed time path. We employ the non-perturbative framework of the two-particle irreducible (2PI) quantum effective action at next-to-leading order in a large-N expansion. We also compare to classical-statistical field theory simulations on a lattice in the high-temperature regime. By this, we demonstrate that the real-time decay rates are comparable to those obtained from the conventional Euclidean (bounce) approach. In general, we find that the decay rates are time dependent. For a more comprehensive description of the dynamics, we extract a time-dependent effective potential, which becomes convex during the nonequilibrium transition process. By solving the quantum evolution equations for the one- and two-point correlation functions for vacuum initial conditions, we demonstrate that quantum corrections can lead to transitions that are not captured by classical-statistical approximations.
%K false vacuum: decay (INSPIRE)
%K higher-order: 1 (INSPIRE)
%K field theory: scalar (INSPIRE)
%K two-point function (INSPIRE)
%K ground state (INSPIRE)
%K expansion 1/N (INSPIRE)
%K effective action (INSPIRE)
%K asymmetry (INSPIRE)
%K nonperturbative (INSPIRE)
%K two-particle (INSPIRE)
%K boundary condition (INSPIRE)
%F PUB:(DE-HGF)25
%9 Preprint
%R 10.3204/PUBDB-2023-06184
%U https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/596542