CATALYZED DECAY OF A FALSE VACUUM IN 4 DIMENSIONS

The probability of destruction of a metastable vacuum state by the fie ld of a highly virtual particle with energy E is calculated for a (3 1)-dimensional theory in the leading WKB approximation in the thin-wa ll limit. It is found that the induced nucleation rate of bubbles, cap able of expansion, is exponentially small at any energy. The negative exponential power in the rate reaches its maximum at the energy, corre sponding to the top of the barrier in the bubble energy, where it is a finite fraction of the same power in the probability of the spontaneo us decay of the false vacuum, i.e., at E = 0.