1205.5184 (V. A. Rubakov et al.)

Fermions and Kaluza-Klein vacuum decay: a toy model    [PDF]

V. A. Rubakov, M. Yu. Kuznetsov

We address the question of whether or not fermions with twisted periodicity condition suppress the semiclassical decay of M^4xS^1 Kaluza--Klein vacuum. We consider a toy (1+1)-dimensional model with twisted fermions in sigar-shaped Euclidean background geometry and calculate the fermion determinant. We find that contrary to expectations, the determinant is finite. We consider this as an indication that twisted fermions do not stabilize the Kaluza--Klein vacuum.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.5184