16,672 research outputs found
Non trivial generalizations of the Schwinger pair production result II
It is suggested that Schwinger's (1951) vacuum persistence probability
against pair production by an intense but constant electric field is a very
good approximation to the corresponding quantity if the field does not vary
appreciably over distances less than m/e/E/5 pagesComment: 5 page
Coherence and Josephson oscillations between two tunnel-coupled one-dimensional atomic quasicondensates at finite temperature
We revisit the theory of tunnel-coupled atomic quasicondensates in
double-well elongated traps at finite temperatures. Using the
functional-integral approach, we calculate the relative-phase correlation
function beyond the harmonic limit of small fluctuations of the relative phase
and its conjugate relative-density variable. We show that the thermal
fluctuations of the relative phase between the two quasicondensates decrease
the frequency of Josephson oscillations and even wash out these oscillations
for small values of the tunnel coupling.Comment: revtex4, 4 figures (.eps
Multidimensional Worldline Instantons
We extend the worldline instanton technique to compute the vacuum pair
production rate for spatially inhomogeneous electric background fields, with
the spatial inhomogeneity being genuinely two or three dimensional, both for
the magnitude and direction of the electric field. Other techniques, such as
WKB, have not been applied to such higher dimensional problems. Our method
exploits the instanton dominance of the worldline path integral expression for
the effective action.Comment: 22 pages, 13 figure
Damping of electromagnetic waves due to electron-positron pair production
The problem of the backreaction during the process of electron-positron pair
production by a circularly polarized electromagnetic wave propagating in a
plasma is investigated. A model based on the relativistic Boltzmann-Vlasov
equation with a source term corresponding to the Schwinger formula for the pair
creation rate is used. The damping of the wave, the nonlinear up-shift of its
frequency due to the plasma density increase and the effect of the damping on
the wave polarization and on the background plasma acceleration are
investigated as a function of the wave amplitude.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures; revtex
Worldline Instantons II: The Fluctuation Prefactor
In a previous paper [1], it was shown that the worldline expression for the
nonperturbative imaginary part of the QED effective action can be approximated
by the contribution of a special closed classical path in Euclidean spacetime,
known as a worldline instanton. Here we extend this formalism to compute also
the prefactor arising from quantum fluctuations about this classical closed
path. We present a direct numerical approach for determining this prefactor,
and we find a simple explicit formula for the prefactor in the cases where the
inhomogeneous electric field is a function of just one spacetime coordinate. We
find excellent agreement between our semiclassical approximation, conventional
WKB, and recent numerical results using numerical worldline loops.Comment: 28 pages, 1 figure; v2 references added, version in PR
Electron-Positron Pair Production in Space- or Time-Dependent Electric Fields
Treating the production of electron and positron pairs by a strong electric
field from the vacuum as a quantum tunneling process we derive, in
semiclassical approximation, a general expression for the pair production rate
in a -dependent electric field pointing in the -direction. We also
allow for a smoothly varying magnetic field parallel to . The result is
applied to a confined field for , a
semi-confined field for , and a linearly increasing
field . The boundary effects of the confined fields on
pair-production rates are exhibited. A simple variable change in all formulas
leads to results for electric fields depending on time rather than space.
In addition, we discuss tunneling processes in which empty atomic bound
states are spontaneously filled by negative-energy electrons from the vacuum
under positron emission. In particular, we calculate the rate at which the
atomic levels of a bare nucleus of finite size and large
are filled by spontaneous pair creation.Comment: 33 pages and 9 figures. to appear in Phys. Rev.
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