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Cosmic Lockdown: How Decoherence Can Trap Quantum Fields in a Vacuum
Key Takeaways
- A study in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics by Christie, Joo, Kaplanek, Vennin and Wands uses a simplified cosmological model to examine what determines which vacuum a quantum field occupies in an expanding universe.
- Cosmological vacuums are energy minima rather than regions empty of energy; a true vacuum is the deepest minimum, while false vacua are shallower local minima that can trap a field.
- The work suggests decoherence — the loss of quantum coherence through environmental interaction — can suppress quantum tunneling, locking a field into the vacuum it has already reached.
- The Higgs field is cited as motivation: some Standard Model calculations allow that it may sit in a false vacuum, with a deeper minimum potentially existing at very large field values.
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DT Editorial Team··via phys.org