Tunnelling and the Casimir effect on a D-dimensional sphere

TY - JOUR

T1 - Tunnelling and the Casimir effect on a D-dimensional sphere

AU - Alexandre, Jean

AU - Backhouse, Drew

N1 - 5 pages, 2 figures

PY - 2024/12/27

Y1 - 2024/12/27

N2 - Two fundamental signatures of Quantum Mechanics are tunnelling and the Casimir effect. We examine the ground state energetic properties of a scalar field confined on a $D$-dimensional sphere, and subjected to these two effects. We focus on $D=2$ and $D=3$, with a non-minimal coupling of a massless scalar field to curvature, which provides a radius-dependent effective mass. This scenario allows tunnelling to be more important than the Casimir effect, in a certain regime of parameters, and potential implications in Early Cosmology are discussed for the case $D=3$, which could avoid a cosmological singularity.

AB - Two fundamental signatures of Quantum Mechanics are tunnelling and the Casimir effect. We examine the ground state energetic properties of a scalar field confined on a $D$-dimensional sphere, and subjected to these two effects. We focus on $D=2$ and $D=3$, with a non-minimal coupling of a massless scalar field to curvature, which provides a radius-dependent effective mass. This scenario allows tunnelling to be more important than the Casimir effect, in a certain regime of parameters, and potential implications in Early Cosmology are discussed for the case $D=3$, which could avoid a cosmological singularity.

KW - hep-th

KW - hep-ph

U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevD.110.L121703

DO - 10.1103/PhysRevD.110.L121703

M3 - Article

SN - 2470-0029

JO - Physical Review D

JF - Physical Review D

ER -