{
  "abstract": "A quantum tunneling event in field theory is usually depicted as the materialization of a spherical bubble of true vacuum. The bubble appears at rest, and its profile is the time-symmetric slice of Coleman's bounce, the Euclidean solution that controls the decay rate. However, the bubble is spherical only in the leading semiclassical approximation: at the next order the configuration is a Gaussian ensemble of fluctuations around the bounce. We derive the wave functional of the field on the nucleation slice from the half-bounce path integral, and use it to compute the root-mean-square quadrupole moment of a bubble at nucleation. The relative deformation of the bubble wall radius $R$ is $δR/R\\sim(\\hbar/S_b)^{1/2}$, with $S_b$ the bounce action. Thus $δR/R\\sim0.1$ for a typical cosmological phase transition with $S_b/\\hbar\\sim100$.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2610.41504",
  "author_total": 4,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Kfir Blum"
    },
    {
      "name": "Ipak Fadakar"
    },
    {
      "name": "Omri Rosner"
    },
    {
      "name": "Guilherme L. Pimentel"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0wfa730b60kvh.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2610.41504",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "0wfa730b60kvh",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.41504",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "licence_label": "CC0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "gr-qc"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "hep-ph"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "hep-th"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "quant-ph"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.41504",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-30",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0wfa730b60kvh.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-02T12:21:15Z",
      "native_id": "2610.41504",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.41504"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:gr-qc",
      "subfield": "gravitation"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:hep-ph",
      "subfield": "high-energy"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:quant-ph",
      "subfield": "quantum"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Quantum Popcorn: the shape of a phase transition bubble",
  "title_text": "Quantum Popcorn: the shape of a phase transition bubble",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-04T15:20:51Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0wfa730b60kvh",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}