Related papers: Measuring the Boiling Point of the Vacuum of Quant…
The vacuum of quantum electrodynamics is unstable against the formation of many-body states in the presence of an external electric field, manifesting itself as the creation of electron-positron pairs (Schwinger effect). This effect has…
In the context of quantum electrodynamics, the decay of false vacuum leads to the production of electron-positron pair, a phenomenon known as the Schwinger effect. In practical experimental scenarios, producing a pair requires an extremely…
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…
We study the electron-positron pair production process in strong background electric fields with spatio-temporal inhomogeneity in the time-dependent Basis Light-front Quantization approach. We calculate the observables such as the invariant…
Electric fields may decay by quantum tunneling: as calculated by Schwinger, an electron-positron pair may be summoned from the vacuum. In this paper I calculate the pair-production rate at nonzero temperatures. I find that at high…
A spatially homogeneous, time-dependent, electric field can produce charged particle pairs from the vacuum. When the electric field is constant, the mean number of pairs which are produced depends on the electric field and the coupling…
In quantum electrodynamics, Schwinger showed in 1951 that in a uniform electric field the vacuum may spontaneously produce electron-positron pairs. For this to occur, the required electric field is exceptionally large, $\sim 10^{18}$ N/C.…
In scalar QED we study the Schwinger pair production from an initial ensemble of charged bosons when an electric field is turned on for a finite period together with or without a constant magnetic field. The scalar QED Hamiltonian depends…
The possibility of electron-positron pair creation by an electric field is studied by using only those methods in field theory the predictions of which are confirmed experimentally. These methods include the perturbative method of quantum…
Ever since Schwinger published his influential paper [J. Schwinger, Phys. Rev. \textbf{82}, 664 (1951)], it has been unanimously accepted that the vacuum is stable in the presence of an electromagnetic plane wave. However, we advance an…
We investigate Schwinger pair production in spatially inhomogeneous electric backgrounds. A critical point for the onset of pair production can be approached by fields that marginally provide sufficient electrostatic energy for an off-shell…
The spontaneous production of electron-positron pairs from the vacuum--in a field configuration composed of a high-frequency electric mode of weak intensity and a strong constant electric field--is investigated. Asymptotic expressions for…
The possibility to observe vacuum electron-positron pair creation due to a powerful optical laser pulse is discussed. We employ a quantum kinetic formulation of the problem with a source term describing the vacuum pair production in a…
Using a quantum kinetic equation coupled to Maxwell's equation we study the possibility that focused beams at proposed X-ray free electron laser facilities can generate electric field strengths large enough to cause spontaneous…
A detailed analysis of electron-positron pair creation induced by a spatially nonuniform and static electric field from vacuum is presented. A typical example is provided by the Sauter potential. For this potential, we derive the analytic…
Spontaneous pair production from background fields or spacetimes is one of the most prominent phenomena predicted by quantum field theory. The Schwinger mechanism of production of charged pairs by a strong electric field and the Hawking…
It is believed that in presence of some strong electromagnetic fields, called overcritical, the (Dirac) vacuum becomes unstable and decays leading to a spontaneous production of an electron-positron pair. Yet, the arguments are based mainly…
Using semiclassical WKB-methods, we calculate the rate of electron-positron pair-production from the vacuum in the presence of two external fields, a strong (space- or time-dependent) classical field and a monochromatic electromagnetic…
Treating the production of electron and positron pairs by a strong electric field from the vacuum as a quantum tunneling process we derive, in semiclassical approximation, a general expression for the pair production rate in a $z$-dependent…
Quantum electrodynamics predicts the vacuum to behave as a non-linear medium, including effects such as birefringence. However, for experimentally available field strengths, this vacuum polarizability is extremely small and thus very hard…