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  • Open Access

False vacuum decay in triamond lattice gauge theory

Ali H. Z. Kavaki* and Randy Lewis†

  • Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University, Toronto M3J 1P3, Ontario, Canada

  • *Contact author: alihzk@yorku.ca
  • †Contact author: randy.lewis@yorku.ca
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Phys. Rev. D 112, 014502 – Published 1 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/1km8-3tc3

Abstract

The transition from a false vacuum to the true vacuum is a real-time phenomenon of interest in many contexts. It represents a special challenge for strongly interacting non-Abelian gauge theories because standard spacetime lattices incorporate imaginary time from the outset. To attain real-time phenomena, Hamiltonian lattice methods are being developed for quantum computers. The present work considers SU(2) gauge theory on a minimal lattice in three spatial dimensions, where round-the-world strings called torelons can travel and interact. This minimal 3D lattice has a triamond structure whose properties are elucidated by calculating the spectrum of torelon states. Then, by introducing a twisted boundary condition, real-time evolution is used to demonstrate the decay of a false vacuum. Calculations in the present work are done on classical computers except for one benchmark study of imaginary time evolution that ran on the ibm_brisbane quantum computer.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 014502– Published 1 July, 2025
  • Received 7 March 2025
  • Accepted 18 June 2025
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