2025/12/13 by Flores-Hidalgo, G.
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Physical and Chemical Molecular Interactions #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum chaos and dynamical systems
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2512.12161
openalex publication_date 2025/12/13 · openalex created_date 2025/12/17 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The tunneling decay rate per unit volume in Quantum Field Theory (QFT), at order ℏ, is given by Γ/V = Ae-B, where B is the Euclidean action evaluated at the so-called bounce, and A is proportional to the determinant of a second-order differential operator. The dominant contribution comes from the exponential factor. To estimate Γ/V, one must determine the bounce configuration, which satisfies a highly nonlinear equation. A common approach in the literature is the thin-wall approximation. In this work, we extend the formalism to cases where the thin-wall approximation is not valid. We employ a simple variational method to estimate both the bounce and the decay rate, and we find good agreement between our results and full numerical calculations.