In this section
@article{Gould:2019:10.1103/PhysRevA.99.052120,
author = {Gould, O and Mangles, S and Rajantie, A and Rose, S and Xie, C},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevA.99.052120},
journal = {Physical Review A},
title = {Observing thermal Schwinger pair production},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.99.052120},
volume = {99},
year = {2019}
}
TY - JOUR
AB - We study the possibility of observing Schwinger pair production enhanced by a thermal bath of photons. We consider the full range of temperatures and electric field intensities from pure Schwinger production to pure thermal production, and identify the most promising and interesting regimes. In particular, we identify temperatures of ∼ 20 keV/kB and field intensities of ∼ 10²³ W cm¯² where pair production would be observable. In this case, the thermal enhancement over the Schwinger rate is exponentially large and due to effects which are not visible at any finite order in the loop expansion. Pair production in this regime can thus be described as more nonperturbative than the usual Schwinger process, which appears at one loop. Unfortunately, such high temperatures appear to be out of reach of foreseeable technologies, though nonthermal photon distributions with comparable energy densities are possible. We suggest the possibility that similar nonperturbative enhancements may extend out of equilibrium and propose an experimental scheme to test this.
AU - Gould,O
AU - Mangles,S
AU - Rajantie,A
AU - Rose,S
AU - Xie,C
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevA.99.052120
PY - 2019///
SN - 1050-2947
TI - Observing thermal Schwinger pair production
T2 - Physical Review A
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.99.052120
UR - http://arxiv.org/abs/1812.04089v1
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/70408
VL - 99
ER -
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