Spontaneous breaking of a metastable string

2008/08/12 by Alexander Monin, A. Monin, M.B. Voloshin +1 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Quantum chaos and dynamical systems #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #hep-ph #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.78.065048

published as Phys.Rev.D78:065048,2008 · 16 pages, 3 figures

arxiv created 2008/08/12 · openalex publication_date 2008/09/30 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We consider the phase transition of a string with tension \ensuremathε₁ to a string with a smaller tension \ensuremathε₂. The transition proceeds through quantum tunneling, and we calculate in arbitrary number of dimensions the preexponential factor multiplying the leading semiclassical exponential expression for the rate of the process. At \ensuremathε₂=0 the found formula for the decay rate also describes a breakup of a metastable string into two pieces.

Citations

• Fate of the false vacuum: Semiclassical theory
• Fate of the false vacuum. II. First quantum corrections

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• Spontaneous decay of a metastable domain wall
• Evolution of hybrid defect networks
• Metastable strings and dumbbells in supersymmetric hybrid inflation

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