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Kinetic description of vacuum $e^+ e^-$ production in strong electric fields of arbitrary polarization

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2021-02-03 v1 Plasma Physics

Abstract

We present a detailed analysis of the self-consistent system of kinetic equations (KEs) describing electron-positron pair production from vacuum under the action of a spatially homogeneous time-dependent electric field of arbitrary polarization. The physical significance of all the basic functions of the kinetic theory is ascertained. It is demonstrated that the total system of the KEs consists of two coupled quasiparticle and spin subsystems with their integrals of motion. A projection method is proposed in order to obtain the KE system in two particular cases: linearly polarized external electric field and (2+1)-dimensional description of quasiparticles in graphene. We also address the energy conservation law taking into account the internal plasma field and describe an alternative rigorous derivation of the KE system.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2004.02179,
  title  = {Kinetic description of vacuum $e^+ e^-$ production in strong electric fields of arbitrary polarization},
  author = {I. A. Aleksandrov and V. V. Dmitriev and D. G. Sevostyanov and S. A. Smolyansky},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.02179},
  year   = {2021}
}

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15 pages