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Many-body theory of false vacuum decay in quantum spin chains

Christian Johansen1, Alessio Recati1,2, Iacopo Carusotto1,2, and Alberto Biella1,2,*

  • *Contact author: alberto.biella@cnr.it
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Phys. Rev. B 114, 144303 – Published 18 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/kskv-9mhr

Abstract

In this work, we theoretically investigate the false vacuum decay process in a ferromagnetic quantum spin-1/2 chain. We develop a many-body theory describing the nucleation and the coherent dynamics of true-vacuum bubbles that is analytically tractable and agrees with numerical matrix product state calculations in all parameter regimes up to intermediate times. This theory allows us to identify different regimes in the parameter space and unravel the underlying physical mechanisms, thus offering conceptual insight into the microscopic quantum dynamics of metastable states. In particular, analogies and differences with the cosmological false vacuum decay picture are highlighted and characterized in terms of experimentally observable quantities.

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. B 114, 144303– Published 18 September, 2026
  • Received 29 September 2025
  • Revised 2 June 2026
  • Accepted 17 August 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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