Dissipative effects during the oscillations around a true vacuum

JUAN PABLO PAZ

PHYSICAL REVIEW D - PARTICLE AND FILDS

AIP

Lugar: NEW YORK ; Año: 1990 vol. 42 p. 529 - 542

0556-2821

Using functional techniques (the closed-time-path formalism) we derive a systematic way of computing the dynamical operator for the fluctuations of the mean value around a stable configuration. The equations are real and causal and contain some dissipative terms. We examine the effects predicted by them for a λΦ4 theory in the one- and two-loop approximations. We estimate the time needed for the damping of the oscillations around a zero and a nonzero mean value (the dominant processes are different in these two cases). We discuss some conceptual issues about the nature of this dissipative process.