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false vacuum

noun

Definitions

  1. A (hypothetical) metastable vacuum whose energy state is at a local minimum different…

    A (hypothetical) metastable vacuum whose energy state is at a local minimum different from the global minimum; a vacuum that is relatively stable and long-lived but which still may decay to a lower-energy state.

    • 2010, Sean Carroll, From Eternity to Here, Oneworld Publications, eBook Edition, When a field is stuck in a false vacuum, it wants to decay to the lower-energy true vacuum.
    • False vacua play an important role in models of the inflationary universe and elsewhere. In the following we consider first (after some recapitulations) a simple model of a false vacuum.

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sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA