Is Vacuum Decay from a False to True State Impossible or Just Unlikely?

[Suekdccia]

TL;DR Summary

I vacuum decay impossible

I found this paper (https://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0211160.pdf) which argues against the possibility of a decay from a metastable vacuum to a true vacuum state. However, this is the first time I've read this. Is it then impossible that a vacuum decay from a false vacuum may occur (even in principle)? Or is it just unlikely (but not strictly impossible)?

Also, I've been told in an email by CERN physicist Gian Carlo Giudice that a true vacuum state could be excited into a false one by "injecting" energy to the vacuum (like with high-energy cosmic rays). However, he did not give any specific source, although what he said seems perfectly logical (if there was energy present in the true vacuum state, why couldn't it excited into a metastable state?) Could you give me some?

 

[PeterDonis]

argues against the possibility of a decay from a metastable vacuum to a true vacuum state

Not really, no. It argues that, in a certain kind of quantum gravity model, if you start with de Sitter spacetime (i.e., a positive cosmological constant), and such a decay occurs, it will not be into a flat or Anti-de Sitter (AdS--negative cosmological constant) spacetime, but into an open FRW spacetime with zero cosmological constant.

 

[Suekdccia]

Not really, no. It argues that, in a certain kind of quantum gravity model, if you start with de Sitter spacetime (i.e., a positive cosmological constant), and such a decay occurs, it will not be into a flat or Anti-de Sitter (AdS--negative cosmological constant) spacetime, but into an open FRW spacetime with zero cosmological constant.

Thank you

Also, I've been told in an email by CERN physicist Gian Carlo Giudice that a true vacuum state could be excited into a false one by "injecting" energy to the vacuum (like with high-energy cosmic rays). However, he did not give any specific source, although what he said seems perfectly logical (if there was energy present in the true vacuum state, why couldn't it excited into a metastable state?) I haven't been able to find any clear sources about this. Are any of these such papers?

https://arxiv.org/abs/1104.1305 see ref.14 in page 2

https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9905093

https://arxiv.org/abs/1108.0417

If not, do you have any?