A Unified View of Vacuum Decay Channels

TL;DR

This paper presents a unified framework for understanding various vacuum decay processes, showing how different solutions like Coleman’s bounce, Hawking-Moss instantons, and others are interconnected within a continuous family of solutions.

Contribution

It introduces the tunneling potential formalism as a unifying approach that encompasses multiple vacuum decay channels in a single framework.

Findings

Coleman's bounce is part of a continuous family of solutions.

Hawking-Moss instantons and pseudo-bounces are included in this family.

The formalism provides a natural unification of different decay channels.

Abstract

The tunneling potential formalism, an alternative to the standard Coleman Euclidean approach, offers in a natural way a unified view of vacuum decays. In particular, I show in this talk how Coleman's bounce is just a member of a continuous family of solutions that can also feature Hawking-Moss instantons, pseudo-bounces and bubble-of-nothing solutions.