[SEMINARI] SEMINAR: Matthew Kleban, Thermal transitions in the Landscape

[German Rodrigo Garcia]

Thermal transitions in the Landscape

Matthew Kleban
New York University
Wednesday, 28 of February of 2007     11:30 AM
Theoretical Physics Seminars room

Abstract

I will describe the structure and cosmological signatures of instantons 
mediating tunneling between de Sitter minima. For generic potentials the 
Coleman-de Luccia instanton does not necessarily exist; when it does not, 
the instanton which contributes to the decay rate is the Hawking-Moss 
instanton. I will interpret this solution and describe the resulting 
cosmology, and argue that an observation of significant positive curvature 
would rule out the possibility that our universe arose from any transition 
from a neighboring minimum in the string-theory landscape.