Effective field theory approach to thermal bubble nucleation

Gould, Oliver; Hirvonen, Joonas

Abstract

The standard vacuum bounce formalism suffers from inconsistencies when applied to thermal bubble nucleation, for which ad hoc workarounds are commonly adopted. Identifying the length scales on which nucleation takes place, we demonstrate how the construction of an effective description for these scales naturally resolves the problems of the standard vacuum bounce formalism. Further, by utilising high-temperature dimensional reduction, we make a connection to classical nucleation theory. This offers a clear physical picture of thermal bubble nucleation, as well as a computational framework which can then be pushed to higher accuracy. We demonstrate the method for three qualitatively different quantum field theories.

Citation

Gould, O., & Hirvonen, J. (2021). Effective field theory approach to thermal bubble nucleation. Physical Review D, 104(9), Article 096015. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.096015

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 25, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Nov 24, 2021
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Dec 8, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 8, 2021
• Journal: Physical Review D
• Print ISSN: 2470-0010
• Electronic ISSN: 2470-0029
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 104
• Issue: 9
• Article Number: 096015
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.096015
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/6187473
• Publisher URL: https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.096015