Dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect in inhomogeneous electric fields

• Published in: The journal of high energy physics Vol. 2016; no. 2; p. 1
• Main Authors: Schneider, Christian, Schützhold, Ralf
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-02-2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Classical and Quantum Gravitation; Elementary Particles; High energy physics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Quantum Field Theories; Quantum Field Theory; Quantum Physics; Regular Article - Theoretical Physics; Relativity Theory; String Theory; Nonperturbative Effects; Solitons Monopoles and Instantons
• ISSN: 1029-8479; 1029-8479
• DOI: 10.1007/JHEP02(2016)164

A
bstract
Via the world-line instanton method, we study electron-positron pair creation by a strong (but sub-critical) electric field of the profile
E/
cosh
2
(
kx
) superimposed by a weaker pulse
E
′
/
cosh
2
(
ωt
). If the temporal Keldysh parameter
γ
ω
=
mω/
(
qE
) exceeds a threshold value
γ
ω
crit
which depends on the spatial Keldysh parameter
γ
k
=
mk/
(
qE
), we find a drastic enhancement of the pair creation probability — reporting on what we believe to be the first analytic non-perturbative result for the interplay between temporal and spatial field dependences
E
(
t, x
) in the Sauter-Schwinger effect. Finally, we speculate whether an analogous effect (drastic enhancement of tunneling probability) could occur in other scenarios such as stimulated nuclear decay, for example.