Tunneling decay of self-gravitating vortices

Abstract

We investigate tunneling decay of false vortices in the presence of gravity, in which vortices are trapped in the false vacuum of a theory of scalar electrodynamics in three dimensions. The core of the vortex contains magnetic flux in the true vacuum, while outside the vortex is the appropriate topologically nontrivial false vacuum. We numerically obtain vortex solutions which are classically stable; however, they could decay via tunneling. To show this phenomenon, we construct the proper junction conditions in curved spacetime. We find that the tunneling exponent for the vortices is half that for Coleman-de Luccia bubbles and discuss possible future applications.