Thermal derivation of the Coleman-De Luccia tunneling prescription

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dc.creatorBrown, Adam R.
dc.creatorWeinberg, Erick J.
dc.date2007-06-12
dc.date2007-09-01
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T10:56:11Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T10:56:11Z
dc.descriptionWe derive the rate for transitions between de Sitter vacua by treating the field theory on the static patch as a thermal system. This reproduces the Coleman-De Luccia formalism for calculating the rate, but leads to a modified interpretation of the bounce solution and a different prediction for the evolution of the system after tunneling. The bounce is seen to correspond to a sequence of configurations interpolating between initial and final configurations on either side of the tunneling barrier, all of which are restricted to the static patch. The final configuration, which gives the initial data on the static patch for evolution after tunneling, is obtained from one half of a slice through the center of the bounce, while the other half gives the configuration before tunneling. The formalism makes no statement about the fields beyond the horizon. This approach resolves several puzzling aspects and interpretational issues concerning the Coleman-De Luccia and Hawking-Moss bounces. We work in the limit where the back reaction of matter on metric can be ignored, but argue that the qualitative aspects remain in the more general case. The extension to tunneling between anti-de Sitter vacua is discussed.
dc.description28 pages, 5 figures; minor rephrasing, typos corrected
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/0706.1573
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/0706.1573
dc.identifierPhys.Rev.D76:064003,2007
dc.identifierdoi:10.1103/PhysRevD.76.064003
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/186325
dc.subjectHigh Energy Physics - Theory
dc.subjectGeneral Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
dc.titleThermal derivation of the Coleman-De Luccia tunneling prescription
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