Pulse shape dependence in the dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect

Linder, Malte F.; Schneider, Christian; Sicking, Joachim; Szpak, Nikodem; Schützhold, Ralf

doi:10.1103/physrevd.92.085009

Cited by 67 publications

(131 citation statements)

References 49 publications

(70 reference statements)

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“…Preliminary investigations indicate that the world-line instanton method can also be applied to these more complex field profiles and that the general behavior of dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect persists. This will be the subject of future studies, see also [74].…”

Section: Jhep02(2016)164mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect in inhomogeneous electric fields

Schneider

Schützhold

2016

J. High Energ. Phys.

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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 crit ω 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.

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Section: Jhep02(2016)164mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect in inhomogeneous electric fields

Schneider

Schützhold

2016

J. High Energ. Phys.

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“…It was confirmed that the switch-on and -off effects may be very significant (see also Refs. [14][15][16]26]), especially if one considers a "sharp" time-or space-dependent switching function, which means that for 2D backgrounds both temporal and spatial dependences should be taken into account exactly which can be done with the aid of the technique developed. In this context it is worth noting that, according to Ref.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These results confirm that the switch-on and -off effects may play a very important role (see also Refs. [14][15][16]26]). Such effects with respect to the spatial finiteness of external fields will be discussed below.…”

Section: "Rectangular" Time-dependent Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, in order to study more general scenarios one has to consider higher-dimensional cases for which the corresponding calculation procedures should be designed. During the last few years a number of attempts have been made to examine the Schwinger effect in space-time-dependent configurations of external fields by means of various techniques [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. In Refs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Refs. [26][27][28] the world-line method [29] was used to investigate several other types of external electric fields. Nevertheless, our knowledge about 2D models is still very limited and, therefore, it is strongly desirable to develop new independent techniques for the corresponding analysis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Electron-positron pair production in external electric fields varying both in space and time

2016

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The Schwinger mechanism of electron-positron pair production in the presence of strong external electric fields is analyzed numerically for the case of one-and two-dimensional field configurations where the external field depends both on time and one spatial coordinate. In order to provide this analysis, a new efficient numerical approach is developed. The number of particles created is obtained numerically and also compared with the analytical results for several exactly solvable one-dimensional backgrounds. For the case of two-dimensional field configurations the effects of the spatial finiteness are examined, which confirms their importance and helps us to attest our approach further. The corresponding calculations are also performed for several more interesting and nontrivial combinations of temporal and spatial inhomogeneities. Finally, we discuss the case of a spatially periodic external field when the approach is particularly productive. The method employed is described in detail.

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Dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect — non-perturbative versus perturbative aspects

Torgrimsson

Schneider

Oertel

et al. 2017

J. High Energ. Phys.

152

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The Sauter-Schwinger effect predicts the creation of electron-positron pairs out of the quantum vacuum by a strong and slowly varying electric field. This effect can be dynamically assisted by an additional weaker time-dependent field, which may drastically enhance the pair-creation probability. In previous studies, it has been found that the enhancement may crucially depend on the temporal shape of this weaker pulse, e.g., a Gaussian profile exp{−(ωt) 2 } or a Sauter pulse 1/ cosh 2 (ωt) behave quite differently. In order to understand this difference, we make a perturbative expansion in terms of the weaker field while treating the strong electric field non-perturbatively. For a large class of profiles including the Sauter pulse, already the sum of the zeroth-order and the first-order amplitudes of this perturbative expansion yields good agreement. For other cases, such as a Gaussian or sinusoidal profile, this is not true in general and higher orders can yield the dominant contribution -where the dominant order depends on the chosen parameters. Our findings are confirmed by numerical simulations and help us to sort previous results into a bigger picture.

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Pulse shape dependence in the dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect

Cited by 67 publications

References 49 publications

Dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect in inhomogeneous electric fields

Dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect in inhomogeneous electric fields

Electron-positron pair production in external electric fields varying both in space and time

Dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect — non-perturbative versus perturbative aspects

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