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arxiv: hep-th/0612146 · v2 · submitted 2006-12-14 · ✦ hep-th · gr-qc

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Hawking-Moss bounces and vacuum decay rates

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classification ✦ hep-th gr-qc
keywords potentialhawking-mossratevacuavacuumanalogousanalyzebarrier
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The conventional interpretation of the Hawking-Moss (HM) solution implies a transition rate between vacua that depends only on the values of the potential in the initial vacuum and at the top of a potential barrier, leading to the implausible conclusion that transitions to distant vacua can be as likely as those to a nearby one. I analyze this issue using a nongravitational example with analogous properties. I show that such HM bounce do not give reliable rate calculations, but are instead related to the probability of finding a quasistable configuration at a local potential maximum.

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