Theory HEP Seminar

The dynamics of vacuum decay

Matt Johnson

York University & Perimeter Institute

Metastable ‘false’ vacuum states are an important feature of the Standard Model of particle physics and many theories beyond it. Describing the dynamics of a phase transition out of a false vacuum, at zero or finite temperature, via the nucleation of bubbles is essential for understanding the cosmology of vacuum decay and the full spectrum of observables. In this talk I will first describe new observables associated with vacuum decay that can only be accessed in the fully dynamical regime (arXiv: 2312.13364 and 2109.04496): bubble-bubble correlation functions, bubble nucleation pre-cursors, and bubble centre-of-mass velocity. I will then describe on-going efforts to perform quantum simulations of vacuum decay using cold-atom quantum simulators within the Quantum Simulators for Fundamental Physics (QSimFP: https://qsimfp.org/) consortium (arXiv: 2307.02549).