One-loop corrections to the bubble nucleation rate at finite temperature

Abstract

We present an evaluation of the one-loop prefactor in the lifetime of a metastable state which decays at finite temperature by bubble nucleation. Such a state is considered in the one-component ${\ensuremath{\phi}}^{4}$ model in three space dimensions. The calculation serves as a prototype application of a fast numerical method for evaluating the functional determinants that appear in semiclassical approximations.