Membrane nucleation rates from holography

A bstract Membrane nucleation, a higher dimensional analog of the Schwinger effect, is useful toy model for vacuum decay. While non-perturbative computation nucleation rates has only been accomplished at weak coupling in field theory. Here we compute spherical membranes using AdS/CFT duality, thus naturally including effects strong coupling. More precisely, consider coupled to an antisymmetric tensor field, process which renders unstable above critical value strength. We analyze membrane creation flat and de Sitter space various foliations AdS. This via instanton methods, where rate dominated by semi-classical on-shell Euclidean action. Our findings generalize holographic effect provide step toward false decay mediated Coleman-De Luccia instantons.