The complex time WKB approximation and particle production (Q1977591)

This paper is a critical review of particle production in curved spacetime and is a generalization with an extension to blackhole problems. The technique of complex time WKB (CWKB) is generalized to the space dependent gauge. Using CWKB, the gauge invariant result for particle production in Minkowski spacetime in a strong electric field is obtained. The particle production in de Sitter spacetime in space dependent gauge is carried out which coincides with earlier results derived in time dependent gauge. The results for de Sitter spacetime have an obvious extension to particle production in black hole spacetime. It is found that the origin of Planck spectrum is due to repeated reflections between the turning points.