Fate of the false monopoles: induced vacuum decay

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability and decay mechanisms of false magnetic monopoles in a gauge theory with intermediate symmetry breaking, showing how monopole decay can catalyze false vacuum decay with increased tunneling rates.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis of false monopoles, deriving instantons and calculating decay rates, revealing their role in vacuum decay processes.

Findings

False monopoles exist in certain gauge theories with intermediate symmetry breaking.

Monopole decay can significantly accelerate false vacuum decay.

The decay rate increases with monopole mass, surpassing homogeneous tunneling rates.

Abstract

We study a gauge theory model where there is an intermediate symmetry breaking to a meta- stable vacuum that breaks a simple gauge group to a U (1) factor. Such models admit the existence of meta-stable magnetic monopoles, which we dub false monopoles. We prove the existence of these monopoles in the thin wall approximation. We determine the instantons for the collective coordinate that corresponds to the radius of the monopole wall and we calculate the semi-classical tunneling rate for the decay of these monopoles. The monopole decay consequently triggers the decay of the false vacuum. As the monopole mass is increased, we find an enhanced rate of decay of the false vacuum relative to the celebrated homogeneous tunneling rate due to Coleman [1].