Abstract
We formulate a procedure to obtain a gauge-invariant tunneling rate at zero temperature using the recently developed tunneling potential approach. This procedure relies on a consistent power counting in gauge coupling and a derivative expansion. The tunneling potential approach, while numerically more efficient than the standard bounce solution method, inherits the gauge-dependence of the latter when naïvely implemented. Using the Abelian Higgs model, we show how to obtain a tunneling rate whose residual gauge-dependence arises solely from the polynomial approximations adopted in the tunneling potential computation.
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Arunasalam, S., Ramsey-Musolf, M.J. Tunneling potentials for the tunneling action: gauge invariance. J. High Energ. Phys. 2022, 138 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP08(2022)138
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP08(2022)138