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I'm trying to track down the origin of the False Vacuum paradigm. Is it Coleman and de Luccia's "Gravitational Effects on and of Vacuum Decay" http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/2000/slac-pub-2463.html

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There are earlier references - I have a copy of "The Fate of the False Vacuum" by Sid Coleman in a collection of reprints. I don't know if this is the earliest reference though.

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This is the original reference, it's Coleman's great idea. He was one step away from inflation, and was a little bitter later that he didn't discover inflation himself "because he didn't consider gravitational effects". That's not entirely accurate, he does note that one should consider gravitational effects, and Guth (although not Starobinsky) used this paper as his starting point. – Ron Maimon Sep 7 '12 at 15:17
thanks Twist and Ron, and if anyone else is looking I found an original scan at ccdb5fs.kek.jp/cgi-bin/img_index?197703088 – metzgeer Sep 8 '12 at 0:34

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