Is the vacuum stable?

Alexander Kusenko, Paul Langacker

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

52 Scopus citations

Abstract

The experimental data, as well as theoretical considerations allow (and, in some cases, require) the Universe at present to rest in a false vacuum, whose approximate stability imposes constraints on the model parameters. Under very general and mild conditions, the Universe would have ended up in the standard vacuum even if the potential has deeper minima, provided there was a period in which the temperature was ≳ 1 TeV. In many cases, the zero temperature tunneling rate is much smaller than the inverse age of the Universe. Future experiments may reveal that the physical vacuum is not entirely stable. Implications for the cosmological constant are discussed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)29-33
Number of pages5
JournalPhysics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
Volume391
Issue number1-2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 9 1997

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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