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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Generalized cold-atom simulators for vacuum decay

Alexander C. Jenkins1,*, Ian G. Moss2, Thomas P. Billam3, Zoran Hadzibabic4, Hiranya V. Peiris5,6, and Andrew Pontzen7,1

  • 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
  • 2School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, United Kingdom
  • 3Joint Quantum Centre (JQC) Durham–Newcastle, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, United Kingdom
  • 4Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, J. J. Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom
  • 5Institute of Astronomy and Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, United Kingdom
  • 6The Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle Physics, Department of Physics, Stockholm University, AlbaNova, Stockholm SE-106 91, Sweden
  • 7Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom

  • *Contact author: alex.jenkins@ucl.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. A 110, L031301 – Published 24 September, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.110.L031301

Abstract

Cold-atom analog experiments are a promising new tool for studying relativistic vacuum decay, enabling one to empirically probe early-Universe theories in the laboratory. However, existing proposals place stringent requirements on the atomic scattering lengths that are challenging to realize experimentally. Here we eliminate these restrictions and show that any stable mixture between two states of a bosonic isotope can be used as a faithful relativistic analog. This greatly expands the landscape of suitable experiments, and will expedite efforts to study vacuum decay with cold atoms.

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Phys. Rev. A 110, L031301– Published 24 September, 2024
  • Received 17 November 2023
  • Revised 19 March 2024
  • Accepted 5 September 2024
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