English

Transient phenomena in the axion assisted Schwinger effect

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2022-11-23 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

Particle production induced by a time-dependent background is well understood as the projection of the time-evolved initial state onto a set of final states. While the asymptotic initial and final states are well defined in the usual way, the definition of particles and antiparticles at intermediate times in the presence of external fields is ambiguous. These external fields moreover induce divergences which require regularization. In this paper we clarify some subtleties in the computation of transient effects in physical quantities for fermions in a homogeneous axion background, including Schwinger production in background electromagnetic fields. The presence of the axion requires particular care as well as knowledge of the UV theory when regulating the theory and computing the vacuum contribution to the fermion energy.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2204.10842,
  title  = {Transient phenomena in the axion assisted Schwinger effect},
  author = {Valerie Domcke and Yohei Ema and Kyohei Mukaida},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.10842},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

34 pages, 6 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-24T10:56:11.341Z