• DOI:10.1007/JHEP04(2014)184
• Corpus ID: 39975038

On the quantum stability of Q-balls

@article{Tranberg2014OnTQ,
  title={On the quantum stability of Q-balls},
  author={Anders Tranberg and David J. Weir},
  journal={Journal of High Energy Physics},
  year={2014},
  volume={2014},
  pages={1-18}
}

• A. Tranberg, D. Weir
• Published 28 October 2013
• Physics
• Journal of High Energy Physics

A bstractWe consider the evolution and decay of Q-balls under the influence of quantum fluctuations. We argue that the most important effect resulting from these fluctuations is the modification of the effective potential in which the Q-ball evolves. This is in addition to spontaneous decay into elementary particle excitations and fission into smaller Q-balls previously considered in the literature, which — like most tunnelling processes — are likely to be strongly suppressed. We illustrate the effect of quantum fluctuations in a particular model ϕ6 potential, for which we implement the inhomogeneous Hartree approximation to quantum dynamics and solve for the evolution of Q-balls in 3 + 1 dimensions. We find that the stability range as a function of (field space) angular velocity ω is modified significantly compared to the classical case, so that small-ω Q-balls are less stable than in the classical limit, and large-ω Q-balls are more stable. This can be understood qualitatively in a simple way.