Improved method for studying tunneling and false vacuum decay

The authors present a self-consistent method for determining tunneling rates through a barrier for cases in which quantum effects contribute to the shape of the potential. They question the use of the effective potential which is a static quantity in a dynamical tunneling problem as for example in the New Inflationary Universe scenario. Their method treats the two effects consistently. They present tunneling rate examples for a quantum mechanical system and for a four dimensional field theory. The latter is needed for the calculation of false vacuum decay