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Title: Positive curvature and scalar field tunneling in the landscape

Journal Article · · Physical Review. D.
 [1]
  1. Univ. of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States); Manhattan College, New York, NY (United States)

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.

Research Organization:
Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States); Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
FG02-92ER40699; SC0009919; NNX10AN14G; PHY-1620610; SC001194
OSTI ID:
1491777
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1610195
Journal Information:
Physical Review. D., Vol. 99, Issue 2; ISSN 2470-0010
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Figures / Tables (2)