ar X iv : h ep - p h / 95 10 31 0 v 3 2 N ov 1 99 5 Numerical Study of Induced False Vacuum Decay at High Energies

We calculate numerically the probability exp[ 1 λ F (E/E sph , N/N sph)] of the false vacuum decay in the massive four-dimensional −λφ 4 model from multipar-ticle initial states with fixed number of particles N and energy E greater than the height of the barrier E sph. We find that at E ∼ < 3E sph and N ∼ < 0.4N sph the decay is classically forbidden and thus is exponentially suppressed. We argue that the classically forbidden region extends at small N at least up to E ∼ 10E sph and, most likely, to all energies. Our data suggest that the false vacuum decay induced by two-particle collisions is exponentially suppressed at all energies.