2017/07/12 by Bart Horn
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Classical mechanics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Curvature #False vacuum #Geometry #Mathematics #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Physics #Quantum #Quantum mechanics #Quantum tunnelling #Scalar field #Semiclassical physics #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.99.025010
published as Phys. Rev. D 99, 025010 (2019) · 21 pages, 2 figures
arxiv created 2017/07/12 · openalex publication_date 2019/01/23 · arxiv updated 2019/01/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We present a model of vacuum tunneling through a classically forbidden region where a scalar field changes its value simultaneously over the entire volume of a (meta)stable ancestor vacuum with spherical curvature. The tunneling leaves the geometry unchanged but rearranges the energetic contributions of the matter sources, leading to an inflating solution with residual positive curvature. We show that there exists a parametric regime where this solution is self-consistent and dominates the overall tunneling rate. We conclude that an experimental detection of positive curvature, while not necessarily likely, therefore does not rule out the possibility that our present observer patch originated from semiclassical vacuum tunneling in a string or field theoretic landscape.