Semiclassical pair production rate for time-dependent electrical fields with more than one component: WKB-approach and world-line instantons

DOI10.1016/J.NUCLPHYSB.2014.07.017MaRDI QIDQ894731zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Eckhard Strobel, She-Sheng Xue

Publication date 23 November 2015

Published in Nuclear Physics B (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.3261

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Applications of vector bundles and moduli spaces in mathematical physics (twistor theory, instantons, quantum field theory) (14D21) Semiclassical techniques, including WKB and Maslov methods applied to problems in quantum theory (81Q20) Electromagnetic interaction; quantum electrodynamics (81V10) Constructive quantum field theory (81T08)

Abstract: We present an analytic calculation of the semiclassical electron-positron pair creation rate by time-dependent electrical fields. We use two methods, first the imaginary time method in the WKB-approximation and second the world-line instanton approach. The analytic tools for both methods are generalized to time-dependent electric fields with more than one component. For the WKB method an expansion of the momentum spectrum of produced pairs around the canonical momentum $vecP=0$ is presented which simplifies the computation of the pair creation rate. We argue that the world-line instanton method of [Dunne et al., Phys. Rev. D73, 065028 (2006)] implicitly performs this expansion of the momentum spectrum around $vecP=0$. Accordingly the generalization to more than one component is shown to agree with the WKB result obtained via this expansion. However the expansion is only a good approximation for the cases where the momentum spectrum is peaked around $vecP=0$. Thus the expanded WKB result and the world-line instanton method of [Dunne et al., Phys. Rev. D73, 065028 (2006)] as well as the generalized method presented here are only applicable in these cases. We study the two component case of a rotating electric field and find a new analytic closed form for the momentum spectrum using the generalized WKB method. The momentum spectrum for this field is not peaked around $vecP=0$.

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Cites work

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