Semiclassical Approach to Heterogeneous Vacuum Decay

Understand

We derive the decay rate of an unstable phase of a quantum field theory in the presence of an impurity in the thin-wall approximation.

• This derivation is based on the how the impurity changes the (flat spacetime) geometry relative to case of pure false vacuum.
• Two examples are given that show how to estimate some of the additional parameters that enter into this heterogeneous decay rate.
• This formalism is then applied to the Higgs vacuum of the Standard Model (SM), where baryonic matter acts as an impurity in the electroweak Higgs vacuum.