Tunneling potentials for the tunneling action: gauge invariance

We formulate a procedure to obtain gauge-invariant tunneling rate at zero temperature using the recently developed potential approach. This relies on consistent power counting in gauge coupling and derivative expansion. The approach, while numerically more efficient than standard bounce solution method, inherits gauge-dependence of latter when naively implemented. Using Abelian Higgs model, we show how whose residual arises solely from polynomial approximations adopted computation.