False vacuum decay in de Sitter space-time

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new technique for semiclassical path integral calculations in curved space-time, applied to false vacuum decay in de Sitter space, confirming and extending previous instanton-based methods.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach to account for initial quantum states in decay calculations and interprets the Hawking-Moss instanton as a constrained instanton.

Findings

Justifies the Coleman-De Luccia decay probability calculation.

Interprets Hawking-Moss instanton as a limiting case of constrained instantons.

Calculates the probability of the inverse transition from true to false vacuum.

Abstract

We suggest a technique that explicitly accounts for the structure of an initial state of quantum field in the semiclassical calculations of path integral in curved space-time, and consider decay of metastable state (conformal vacuum of scalar particles above false classical vacuum) in background de Sitter space-time as an example. Making use of this technique, we justify the Coleman-De Luccia approach to the calculation of the decay probability. We propose an interpretation of the Hawking-Moss instanton as a limiting case of constrained instantons. We find that an inverse process of the transition from true vacuum to false one is allowed in de Sitter space-time, and calculate the corresponding probability.