“False vacuum decay” is the scariest of the many possible endings for the cosmos. Based on the hypothesis that a fundamental field in the universe is not at its lowest conceivable state, this scenario is put forth. Within the “false” stable zone, the cosmos has expanded. There’s a chance that the field will suddenly leap to a more stable value, eclipsing reality in the process.
Our understanding of the relevant field—the Higgs field, which gives everything mass—is insufficient to determine the likelihood of this happening. A not-stable state becoming a truly stable state is known as false vacuum decay, although Generally speaking, we still don’t fully grasp how this bubble generation occurs, particularly in experimental settings. Now, the first experimental proof of vacuum decay has been created by a team of British theorists and Italian experimenters.
According to Ian Moss, a professor of theoretical cosmology at Newcastle University, “Vacuum decay is thought to play a central role in the creation of space, time, and matter in the Big Bang, but there has been no experimental test until now.” “In particle physics, vacuum decay of the Higgs boson would alter the laws of physics, producing what has been described as the ‘ultimate ecological catastrophe’.”
Scientists have seen the bubbles emerge in a controlled atmosphere system for the first time. They utilized a supercooled vapor that was less than a millionth of a degree Celsius from absolute zero as a comparable setup for the fake vacuum situation. This configuration isn’t the most stable, but it has the potential to remain that way indefinitely because it is in a metastable condition. It can be visualized as a small valley on a hillside. At the bottom is the lower energy state, but this small dent might hold for a while.
Things in quantum mechanics can exit the little valley without even requiring the additional energy. All they have to do is tunnel down to the lowest possible energy level. Similar thermal effects result in the creation of a bubble in the identical scenario. As the bubble gets bigger, the system enters what is known as the genuine vacuum, which is its lowest energy state.
Co-author Dr. Tom Billam, also of Newcastle, said, “Using the power of ultracold atom experiments to simulate analogs of quantum physics in other systems—in this case, the early universe itself—is a very exciting area of research at the moment.”
The group wants to get the system’s temperature as near to zero as possible. In those circumstances, the quantum effects should emerge and provide a more realistic comparison to the false vacuum decay, while the thermal effects will become less significant.