Spontaneous decay of a metastable domain wall

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the quantum decay process of metastable domain walls, calculating the decay rate's preexponential factor in multiple dimensions, and finds that transverse motion effects renormalize the wall tension, with implications for higher-dimensional branes.

Contribution

It provides a general calculation of the decay rate for metastable domain walls in arbitrary dimensions, highlighting the role of transverse motion and its effect on the decay process.

Findings

Transverse motion reduces to tension renormalization in the decay rate.

The behavior is similar to metastable strings but differs for higher-dimensional branes.

The decay process is governed by quantum tunneling with a calculable preexponential factor.

Abstract

We consider the decay of a metastable domain wall. The transition proceeds through quantum tunneling, and we calculate in arbitrary number of dimensions the preexponential factor multiplying the leading semiclassical exponential expression for the rate of the process. We find that the effect of the motion in transverse directions reduces to a renormalization of the tension of the edge of the wall in the semiclassical exponent. This behavior is similar to the one previously found for breaking of a metastable string. However this simple property is generally lost for spontaneous decay of higher-dimensional branes.