Spontaneous and induced decay of metastable strings and domain walls

DOI10.1016/J.AOP.2009.07.007zbMATH Open1194.81214arXiv0904.1728OpenAlexW3102770653MaRDI QIDQ847073FDOQ847073

Authors: N. E. Zubov 

Publication date: 12 February 2010

Published in: Annals of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We consider decay of metastable topological configurations such as strings and domain walls. The transition from a state with higher energy density to a state with lower one proceeds through quantum tunneling or through thermally catalyzed quantum tunneling (at sufficiently small temperatures). The transition rate is calculated at zero temperature including the preexponential factor and also at a finite low temperature. The thermal catalysis factor is closely related to the probability (effective length) of destruction of the string (the domain wall) in collisions of the Goldstone bosons, corresponding to transverse waves on the string (wall). We derive a general formula which allows to find the probability (effective length) of a string (wall) breakup by a collision of arbitrary number of the bosons. We find that the destruction of a string only takes place in collisions of even number of the bosons, while the destruction of the wall can occur in a collision of any number of particles. We explicitly calculate the energy dependence of such processes in two-particle collisions for arbitrary relation between the energy and the largest infrared scale (the size of a critical gap).

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/0904.1728

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zbMATH Keywords

tunnellingtopological defectsmetastable domain wallmetastable string

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Yang-Mills and other gauge theories in quantum field theory (81T13) String and superstring theories; other extended objects (e.g., branes) in quantum field theory (81T30) Other elementary particle theory in quantum theory (81V25)

Cites Work

• On Gauge Invariance and Vacuum Polarization
• Theta Dependence in the Large<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi mathvariant="italic">N</mml:mi></mml:math>Limit of Four-Dimensional Gauge Theories

Cited In (7)

• Puncture of gravitating domain walls
• Tunneling decay of false domain walls: the silence of the lambs
• Effects of extra degrees of freedom on a decay rate of metastable topological objects
• Bondonic chemistry: spontaneous symmetry breaking of the topo-reactivity on graphene
• Semiclassical analysis of pair creation in de Sitter space
• Quantum nucleation of topological solitons
• Selection Rules for Splitting Strings

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