False vacuum decay in long-range interacting quantum systems

Abstract

We formulate false-vacuum decay in a mixed-field Ising chain with $1/r^α$ interactions as a spatially nonlocal Euclidean $ϕ^4$ theory featuring a fractional spatial kinetic term $\sim |q|^σ$, where $σ=α-1$. The nonlocal bounce is anisotropic in space-time and develops algebraic spatial tails, challenging the standard thin-wall picture of a compact droplet. Combining thin-wall arguments with numerical solutions of the full nonlocal saddle, we show that these tails preserve the leading thin-wall exponents, manifesting instead in subleading corrections. For $0<σ<1$, the lifetime exponent scales with the energy bias $h$ of the metastable state as $B\sim h^{-1/σ}$; for $1<σ<2$, the leading Coleman scaling $B\sim h^{-1}$ is recovered, while long-range effects are retained in the subdominant term $\sim h^{σ-2}$. Our results show that tunable long-range interactions fundamentally reshape bubble nucleation and alter false-vacuum decay in quantum simulators.