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arXiv · 0709.3532

Brane tunneling and virtual brane-antibrane pairs

Adam R. Brown
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Abstract

We survey barrier penetration by quantum tunneling for four cases: nonrelativistic point particles, scalar fields, relativistic point particles, and DBI branes. We examine two novel features that arise for DBI brane tunneling: the rate can sometimes increase as the barrier gets higher; and the instanton "wrinkles". We show that these features can be understood as the effect of the quantum sea of virtual brane-antibrane pairs. This sea exponentially augments the decay rate, with possible cosmological consequences.

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Adam R. Brown. 2017-09-24. Brane tunneling and virtual brane-antibrane pairs. https://arxiv.org/abs/0709.3532

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