Real-time corrections to the effective potential
Abstract
Non-perturbatively generated effective potentials play an extremely useful and often critical role in string and inflationary model building. These potentials are typically computed by methods that assume the system is in equilibrium. For systems out of equilibrium, like an inflaton rolling down its potential, there are corrections to the semi-classical evolution due to transient phenomena. We provide a new qualitative and quantitative understanding of non-perturbative effects in real time for a wide class of toy quantum mechanical models. We derive an effective Schrödinger equation that does not rely on any notion of equilibrium and captures the low-energy dynamics supposedly described by the effective potential. We find that there are potentially large corrections to this potential that are not captured by standard equilibrium techniques, and quantify when these corrections significantly alter the effective dynamics.
- Publication:
-
Journal of High Energy Physics
- Pub Date:
- May 2020
- DOI:
- 10.1007/JHEP05(2020)096
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1905.00219
- Bibcode:
- 2020JHEP...05..096P
- Keywords:
-
- Nonperturbative Effects;
- Solitons Monopoles and Instantons;
- Discrete Symmetries;
- Field Theories in Lower Dimensions;
- High Energy Physics - Theory;
- Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics;
- Condensed Matter - Strongly Correlated Electrons;
- General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology;
- High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
- E-Print:
- 1+36 pages, 12 figures, 4 appendices