Dr. Luca di Luzio "Few remarks on the SM vacuum decay rate"

Wednesday 20 Jan 2016, 16:00 → 18:00 Europe/Rome

Aula C (Dip. di Matematica e Fisica, Universita' di Roma Tre Via della Vasca Navale 84)

I review the formalism by which the tunnelling probability of an unstable ground state can be computed in quantum field theory, with special reference to the Standard Model of electroweak interactions. I describe in some detail the assumptions and approximations implicitly adopted in such calculation. Particular attention is devoted to the role of scale invariance, and to the different implications of scale invariance violations due to quantum effects and possible new interactions close to the Planck mass.