What is the Theory of False Vacuum Decay?
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It’s to do with quantum physics so………………….
…. basically a true vacuum in quantum physics is one in which the space has as little energy as possible. A false vacuum is one which doesn’t.
Now a false vacuum can be stable in that it’d take energy to make it go down to its lowest possible energy state. This could exist for a long time, like billions of years. But if something happened that gave a location of space within it enough energy to drop down to its lowest possible state, that is a true vacuum, then that’d radiate out at the speed of light. We have no idea what that would do but it’d probably change the laws of physics, constants, etc. That would be bad.
While it’s called a vacuum it’s just a term. It’s not like if we pumped air out of a room we’d suddenly create a true vacuum and destroy the universe.
Kurzgesagt is a really cool utube channel with lots of videos including; physics, health and social issues. Pretty sure they do one of false vacuums but I can’t see it to link it
A false vacuum decay means there is some field that is stuck in an unstable (or rather “metastable”) state which then converts into its stable state ie. the true vacuum.
Beyond that it’s somewhat difficult to eli5 because a vacuum in quantum physics probably isn’t the vacuum you’re thinking of, which is a region of space with no matter. A quantum vacuum is a state of lowest energy, and the implications of that are somewhat complicated.
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