Brane tunneling and virtual brane-antibrane pairs

TL;DR

This paper explores quantum tunneling phenomena across different systems, highlighting unique features in DBI brane tunneling caused by virtual brane-antibrane pairs, which can significantly affect decay rates and have cosmological implications.

Contribution

It introduces novel effects in DBI brane tunneling, such as increased rates with higher barriers and instanton wrinkles, explained by virtual brane-antibrane pairs.

Findings

DBI brane tunneling rate can increase with barrier height

Virtual brane-antibrane pairs exponentially enhance decay rates

Potential cosmological impacts of tunneling phenomena

Abstract

We survey barrier penetration by quantum tunneling for four cases: nonrelativistic point particles, scalar fields, relativistic point particles, and DBI branes. We examine two novel features that arise for DBI brane tunneling: the rate can sometimes increase as the barrier gets higher; and the instanton "wrinkles". We show that these features can be understood as the effect of the quantum sea of virtual brane-antibrane pairs. This sea exponentially augments the decay rate, with possible cosmological consequences.