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Cited by 22Particle physics theoretical and experimental studiesBlack Holes and Theoretical PhysicsCosmology and Gravitation Theories

Radiative effects on false vacuum decay in Higgs-Yukawa theory

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Ai, Wen-Yuan, Garbrecht, Björn, Millington, Peter·2018·Physical Review D
DOI 10.1103/physrevd.98.076014
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Abstract

We derive fermionic Green's functions in the background of the Euclidean solitons describing false vacuum decay in a prototypal Higgs-Yukawa theory. In combination with appropriate counterterms for the masses, couplings and wave-function normalization, these can be used to calculate radiative corrections to the soliton solutions and transition rates that fully account for the inhomogeneous background provided by the nucleated bubble. We apply this approach to the archetypal example of transitions between the quasidegenerate vacua of a massive scalar field with a quartic self-interaction. The effect of fermion loops is compared with those from additional scalar fields, and the loop effects accounting for the spacetime inhomogeneity of the tunneling configuration are compared with those where gradients are neglected. We find that scalar loops lead to an enhancement of the decay rate, whereas fermion loops lead to a suppression. These effects get relatively amplified by a perturbatively small factor when gradients are accounted for. In addition, we observe that the radiative corrections to the solitonic field profiles are smoother when the gradients are included. The method presented here for computing fermionic radiative corrections should be applicable beyond the archetypal example of vacuum decay. In particular, we work out methods that are suitable for calculations in the thin-wall limit, as well as others that take account of the full spherical symmetry of the solution. For the latter case, we construct the Green's functions based on spin hyperspherical harmonics, which are eigenfunctions of the appropriate angular momentum operators that commute with the Dirac operator in the solitonic background.

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  • The ratio of functional determinants is computed using the resolvent method, developed in prior work and used in other works.

    “To do so, we employ the resolvent method , developed in [24-27] and used in, e.g., [17, 28-30].”

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Ai, W.-Y., Garbrecht, B., & Millington, P.
Affiliations
Technical University of Munich (DE)
ORCID
Venue
Physical Review D
Publisher
American Physical Society (APS)
Published
2018-10-25
Volume
98
Issue
7
ISSN
  • 2470-0010 (ISSN-L)
  • 2470-0029
DOI
10.1103/physrevd.98.076014
OpenAlex
W2834327889
Cited by
22
References
2
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3
FWCI
0.93
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Physical review. D/Physical review. D. (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (publishedVersion)
  • Repository@Nottingham (University of Nottingham) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • mediaTUM (Technical University of Munich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (submittedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Funders
  • China Scholarship Council
  • Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/L000393/1)
  • Leverhulme Trust
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Nuclear and High Energy Physics › Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Nuclear and High Energy Physics › Black Holes and Theoretical Physics
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Cosmology and Gravitation Theories
Keywords
false vacuum decay, radiative corrections, bubble nucleation, decay rate, fermion loops, gradient effects, thin wall limit, massive scalar field

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