English

Scattering amplitudes and electromagnetic horizons

High Energy Physics - Theory 2023-06-28 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

We consider the scattering of charged particles on particular electromagnetic fields which have properties analogous to gravitational horizons. Classically, particles become causally excluded from regions of spacetime beyond a null surface which we identify as the `electromagnetic horizon'. In the quantum theory there is pair production at the horizon via the Schwinger effect, but only one particle from the pair escapes the field. Furthermore, unitarity appears to be violated when crossing the horizon, and there is no well-defined S-matrix. Despite this, we show how to use the perturbiner method to construct `amplitudes' which contain all the dynamical information required to construct observables related to pair creation, and to radiation from particles scattering on the background.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2306.15475,
  title  = {Scattering amplitudes and electromagnetic horizons},
  author = {Anton Ilderton and William Lindved},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.15475},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

28 pages, 2 pdf figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:15:42.272Z