NUMERICAL STUDY OF INDUCED FALSE VACUUM DECAY AT HIGH ENERGIES

Abstract

We calculate numerically the probability exp [Formula: see text] of the false vacuum decay in the massive four-dimensional −λϕ4 model from multiparticle initial states with fixed number of particles N whose total energy E is of order or greater than the height of the barrier E sph. We find that at E≲3E sph and N≲0.4N sph the decay is classically forbidden and thus is exponentially suppressed. We argue that the classically forbidden region extends, at small N, at least up to E~10E sph and, most likely, to all energies. Our data suggest that the false vacuum decay induced by two-particle collisions is exponentially suppressed at all energies.