2003/02/14 by J. H. Miller Jr, J H Miller,, G C rdenas +7 · 2 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Electronic and Structural Properties of Oxides #Organic and Molecular Conductors Research #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0305-4470/36/35/308
published as J.Phys.A36:9209-9222,2003
arxiv created 2003/02/14 · openalex publication_date 2003/08/20 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
A large body of experimental evidence suggests that the decay of the false vacuum, accompanied by quantum pair creation of soliton domain walls, can occur in a variety of condensed matter systems. Examples include nucleation of charge soliton pairs in density waves (e.g., Miller J H Jr et al 2000 Phys. Rev. Lett . 84 1555) and flux soliton pairs in long Josephson junctions. Recently, Dias and Lemos (2001 J. Math. Phys . 42 3292) have argued that the mass m of the soliton should be interpreted as a line density and a surface density, respectively, for (2 + 1)-D and (3 + 1)-D systems in the expression for the pair production rate. As the transverse dimensions are increased and the total mass (energy) becomes large, thermal activation becomes suppressed, so quantum processes can dominate even at relatively high temperatures. This paper will discuss both experimental evidence and theoretical arguments for the existence of high-temperature collective quantum phenomena.