Related papers: World-line instantons and the Schwinger effect as …
The worldline formalism provides an alternative to Feynman diagrams that has been found particularly useful for external-field calculations in quantum electrodynamics. Here I summarize its present range of applications, which includes…
We study different aspects the worldline path integrals with gauge fields using quantum computing. We use the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) and Evolution of Hamiltonian (EOH) quantum algorithms and IBM QISKit to perform our…
We use exact WKB analysis to derive some concrete formulae in singular quantum perturbation theory, for Schr\"odinger eigenvalue problems on the real line with polynomial potentials of the form $(q^M + g q^N)$, where $N>M>0$ even, and…
An investigation of the validity of the semiclassical approximation to quantum electrodynamics in 1+1 dimensions is given. The criterion for validity used here involves the impact of quantum fluctuations introduced through a two-point…
We explore the relation between the quantum and semiclassical instanton approximations for the reaction rate constant. From the quantum instanton expression, we analyze the contributions to the rate constant in terms of minimum-action paths…
Path-integral expressions for one-particle propagators in scalar and fermionic field theories are derived, for arbitrary mass. This establishes a direct connection between field theory and specific classical point-particle models. The role…
We employ a self consistent framework to study the backreaction effects of particle creation in the coupled semiclassical dynamics of a quantum complex scalar field and a classical electric field in both (1 + 1) and (1 + 3) dimensional…
We semiclassically investigate Schwinger pair production for pulsed rotating electric fields depending on time. To do so we solve the Dirac equation for two-component fields in a WKB-like approximation. The result shows that for…
The necessary and sufficient conditions for the exactness of the semiclassical approximation for the solution of the Schr\"odinger and Klein-Gordon equations are obtained. It is shown that the existence of an exact semiclassical solution of…
We study, for the first time, the Schwinger mechanism for the pair production of charged scalars in the presence of an arbitrary time-dependent background electric field E(t) by by directly evaluating the path integral. We obtain an exact…
Non-perturbative electron-positron pair creation (Schwinger effect) is studied based on the equal-time Wigner formalism in 1+1 dimensions. An ab initio calculation of the Schwinger effect in the presence of a simple space- and…
Complex (semi-)classical paths, or instantons, form an integral part of our understanding of quantum physics. Whereas real classical paths describe classically allowed transitions in the real-time Feynman path integral, classically…
Electric flux may be screened by pair nucleation of heavy charges, a process that has a simple description in terms of a worldline instanton. When flux is wrapped around a small compact spatial dimension, worldline instantons still induce…
The proper time formalism for a particle propagator in an external electromagnetic field is combined with the path-dependent formulation of the gauge theory to simplify the quasiclassical propagator. The latter is achieved due to a specific…
We review the closed time path formalism of Schwinger using a path integral approach. We apply this formalism to the study of pair production from strong external fields as well as the time evolution of a nonequilibrium chiral phase…
We compute Schwinger pair production rates at finite temperature, in the presence of homogeneous, concurrent electric and magnetic fields. Expressions are obtained using the semiclassical worldline instanton formalism, to leading order, for…
We present a comparison of two methods to compute the momentum spectrum and the Schwinger pair creation rate for pulsed rotating electric fields: one based upon the real-time Dirac--Heisenberg--Wigner (DHW) formalism and a semiclassical…
The exactly solvable Schr\"{o}dinger equations with the conventional shape-invariant potentials are known to be related with each other through point cannonical transformations. In this paper, we extend the idea to integral formulae called…
The Feynman path integral has revolutionized modern approaches to quantum physics. Although the path integral formalism has proven very successful and spawned several approximation schemes, the direct evaluation of real-time path integrals…
Electric fields can spontaneously decay via the Schwinger effect, the nucleation of a charged particle-anti particle pair separated by a critical distance $d$. What happens if the available distance is smaller than $d$? Previous work on…