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False vacuum
Hypothetical vacuum, less stable than true vacuum / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In quantum field theory, a false vacuum[1] is a hypothetical vacuum state that is locally stable but does not occupy the most stable possible ground state.[2] In this condition it is called metastable. It may last for a very long time in this state, but could eventually decay to the more stable one, an event known as false vacuum decay. The most common suggestion of how such a decay might happen in our universe is called bubble nucleation – if a small region of the universe by chance reached a more stable vacuum, this "bubble" (also called "bounce")[3][4] would spread.
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A false vacuum exists at a local minimum of energy and is therefore not completely stable, in contrast to a true vacuum, which exists at a global minimum and is stable.