The Late Time Behavior of False Vacuum Decay: Possible Implications for Cosmology and Metastable Inflating States

TL;DR

This paper explores how the late-time decay behavior of false vacuum states could significantly impact cosmological models, including eternal inflation and the observed small vacuum energy, challenging some string theory assumptions.

Contribution

It introduces the potential importance of non-exponential decay behavior of false vacua for cosmology, highlighting implications for eternal inflation and vacuum stability.

Findings

Late-time decay deviates from exponential form.

Implications for eternal inflation and small vacuum energy.

Challenges decay into large negative energy vacua.

Abstract

We describe here how the late time behavior of the decaying states, which is predicted to deviate from an exponential form, while normally of insignificant consequence, may have important cosmological implications in the case of false vacuum decay. It may increase the likelihood of eternal inflation, and may help explain the likelihood of observing a small vacuum energy at late times, as well as arguing against decay into a large negative energy (anti-de Sitter space), vacuum state as has been motivated by some string theory considerations. Several interesting open questions are raised, including whether observing the cosmological configuration of a metastable universe can constrain its inferred lifetime.