WKB approximation and tunneling in theories with noncanonical kinetic terms

Mariana Carrillo González, Ali Masoumi, Adam R. Solomon, and Mark Trodden
Phys. Rev. D 96, 056021 – Published 25 September 2017

Abstract

Tunneling is a fascinating aspect of quantum mechanics that renders the local minima of a potential meta-stable, with important consequences for particle physics, for the early hot stage of the universe, and more speculatively, for the behavior of the putative multiverse. While this phenomenon has been studied extensively for systems which have canonical kinetic terms, many theories of fundamental physics contain fields with noncanonical kinetic structures. It is therefore desirable to have a detailed framework for calculating tunneling rates and initial states after tunneling for these theories. In this work we present such a rigorous formulation and illustrate its use by applying it to a number of examples.

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  • Received 17 May 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.96.056021

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Particles & Fields

Authors & Affiliations

Mariana Carrillo González1,*, Ali Masoumi2,†, Adam R. Solomon1,‡, and Mark Trodden1,§

  • 1Center for Particle Cosmology, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA
  • 2Institute of Cosmology, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA

  • *cmariana@sas.upenn.edu
  • ali.masoumi@tufts.edu
  • adamsol@physics.upenn.edu
  • §trodden@physics.upenn.edu

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Issue

Vol. 96, Iss. 5 — 1 September 2017

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