Fate of the false monopoles: induced vacuum decay. (arXiv:1006.0693v1 [hep-th])

We study a gauge theory model where there is an intermediate symmetry
breaking to a meta- stable vacuum that breaks a simple gauge group to a U (1)
factor. Such models admit the existence of meta-stable magnetic monopoles,
which we dub false monopoles. We prove the existence of these monopoles in the
thin wall approximation. We determine the instantons for the collective
coordinate that corresponds to the radius of the monopole wall and we calculate
the semi-classical tunneling rate for the decay of these monopoles. The
monopole decay consequently triggers the decay of the false vacuum. As the
monopole mass is increased, we find an enhanced rate of decay of the false
vacuum relative to the celebrated homogeneous tunneling rate due to Coleman
[1].

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