TY - JOUR
T1 - De Sitter decays to infinity
AU - Draper, Patrick
AU - Garcia, Isabel Garcia
AU - Lillard, Benjamin
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - Bubbles of nothing are a class of vacuum decay processes present in some theories with compactified extra dimensions. We investigate the existence and properties of bubbles of nothing in models where the scalar pseudomoduli controlling the size of the extra dimensions are stabilized at positive vacuum energy, which is a necessary feature of any realistic model. We map the construction of bubbles of nothing to a four-dimensional Coleman-De Luccia problem and establish necessary conditions on the asymptotic behavior of the scalar potential for the existence of suitable solutions. We perform detailed analyses in the context of five-dimensional theories with metastable dS4× S1 vacua, using analytic approximations and numerical methods to calculate the decay rate. We find that bubbles of nothing sometimes exist in potentials with no ordinary Coleman-De Luccia decay process, and that in the examples we study, when both processes exist, the bubble of nothing decay rate is typically faster. Our methods can be generalized to other stabilizing potentials and internal manifolds.
AB - Bubbles of nothing are a class of vacuum decay processes present in some theories with compactified extra dimensions. We investigate the existence and properties of bubbles of nothing in models where the scalar pseudomoduli controlling the size of the extra dimensions are stabilized at positive vacuum energy, which is a necessary feature of any realistic model. We map the construction of bubbles of nothing to a four-dimensional Coleman-De Luccia problem and establish necessary conditions on the asymptotic behavior of the scalar potential for the existence of suitable solutions. We perform detailed analyses in the context of five-dimensional theories with metastable dS4× S1 vacua, using analytic approximations and numerical methods to calculate the decay rate. We find that bubbles of nothing sometimes exist in potentials with no ordinary Coleman-De Luccia decay process, and that in the examples we study, when both processes exist, the bubble of nothing decay rate is typically faster. Our methods can be generalized to other stabilizing potentials and internal manifolds.
KW - Classical Theories of Gravity
KW - Field Theories in Higher Dimensions
KW - Solitons Monopoles and Instantons
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U2 - 10.1007/JHEP12(2021)154
DO - 10.1007/JHEP12(2021)154
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85121681508
SN - 1126-6708
VL - 2021
JO - Journal of High Energy Physics
JF - Journal of High Energy Physics
IS - 12
M1 - 154
ER -