Numerical Study of Induced False Vacuum Decay at High Energies

We calculate numerically the probability exp[ 1 λ F ( E/E sph , N/N sph )] of the false vacuum decay in the massive four-dimensional − λφ 4 model from multiparticle initial states with fixed number of particles N and energy E greater than the height of the barrier E sph . We find that at E and the decay is classically forbidden and thus is exponentially suppressed. We argue that the classically forbidden region extends at small N at least up to E ∼ 10 E sph and, most likely, to all energies. Our data suggest that the false vacuum decay induced by two-particle collisions is exponentially suppressed at all energies.