In quantum field theory, a false vacuum is a metastable sector of space that appears to be a perturbative vacuum, but is unstable due to instanton effects that may tunnel to a lower energy state. This tunneling can be caused by quantum fluctuations or the creation of high-energy particles. Simply put, the false vacuum is a local minimum, but not the lowest energy state, even though it may remain stable for some time. This is analogous to metastability for first-order phase transitions.
Read more about False Vacuum: Vacuum Metastability Event, Bubble Nucleation, Gravitational Effects
Other articles related to "false vacuum, vacuum, false, false vacuums":
... If this is true for space-time, then that would mean that S-T is in a false vacuum ... A false vacuum is given rise when quantum fluctuations would not allow for space-time to be a true vacuum ... The True vacuum is the Zero-point energy for S-T, which means that it is the lowest possible energy ...
... Variants of the bubble universe model postulate multiple false vacuum states, which result in lower-energy false-vacuum "progeny" universes spawned, which in turn produce true vacuum state ...
... In the supercooled state, a false vacuum is produced ... The false vacuum is a vacuum in the sense that it is state of the lowest possible density of energy it is false in the sense that it is not a permanent state of being ... False vacuums decay, and Guth was to find that the decay of the false vacuum at the beginning of the universe would produce amazing results, namely the exponential ...
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