Tunneling Potentials to Nothing

TL;DR

This paper uses the tunneling potential approach to analyze bubbles of nothing in compactified spacetimes, classifying different types and exploring their decay dynamics and interactions with vacuum decay.

Contribution

It introduces a simplified 4D tunneling potential framework to understand bubbles of nothing and categorizes four distinct types based on higher-dimensional theories.

Findings

Identified four classes of bubbles of nothing in various theories

Analyzed how bubbles of nothing decay and interact with vacuum decay

Provided a unified, simplified picture of these decay processes

Abstract

The catastrophic decay of a spacetime with compact dimensions, via bubbles of nothing (BoNs), is probably a generic phenomenon. BoNs admit a 4-dimensional description as singular Coleman-de Luccia bounces of the size modulus field, stabilized by some potential $V(\phi)$. We apply the tunneling potential approach to this 4d description to provide a very simple picture of BoNs. Using it we identify four different types of BoN, corresponding to different classes of higher dimensional theories. We study the quenching of BoN decays and their interplay with standard vacuum decays.