Quantum rolling down out of equilibrium

Journal Article · Mon Mar 15 00:00:00 EST 1993 · Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.47.2343· OSTI ID:6700463

Boyanovsky, D ^[1]; de Vega, H J ^[2]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260 (United States)
2. Laboratoire de Physique Theorique et Hautes Energies, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Tour 16, 1er etage 4, Place Jussieu, 75252 Paris CEDEX 05 (France)

In a scalar field theory, when the tree-level potential admits broken-symmetry ground states, the quantum corrections to the static effective potential are complex. (The imaginary part is a consequence of an instability towards phase separation and the static effective potential is not a relevant quantity for understanding the dynamics.) Instead, we study here the equations of motion obtained from the one-loop effective action for slow rollover out of equilibrium. We consider the case in which a scalar field theory undergoes a rapid phase transition from [ital T][sub [ital i]][gt][ital T][sub [ital c]] to [ital T][sub [ital f]][lt][ital T][sub [ital c]]. We find that, for slow-rollover initial conditions (the field near the maximum of the tree-level potential), the process of phase separation controlled by unstable long-wavelength fluctuations introduces dramatic corrections to the dynamical evolution of the field. We find that these effects slow the rollover even further, thus delaying the phase transition, and increasing the time that the field spends near the false vacuum.'' Moreover, when the initial value of the field is very close to zero, the dynamics becomes [ital nonperturbative].

• OSTI ID: 6700463
• Journal Information: Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (United States), Vol. 47:6; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
SCALAR FIELDS
SYMMETRY BREAKING
COSMOLOGICAL MODELS
ENERGY DENSITY
EQUATIONS OF MOTION
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
POTENTIALS
SPACE-TIME
UNIVERSE
VACUUM STATES
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
EQUATIONS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
662110* - General Theory of Particles & Fields- Theory of Fields & Strings- (1992-)
662120 - General Theory of Particles & Fields- Symmetry
Conservation Laws
Currents & Their Properties- (1992-)