Pair production in a strong electric field: an initial value problem in quantum field theory

We review recent achievements in the solution of the initial-value problem for quantum back-reaction in scalar and spinor QED. The problem is formulated and solved in the semiclassical mean-field approximation for a homogeneous, time-dependent electric field. Our primary motivation in examining back-reaction has to do with applications to theoretical models of production of the quark-gluon plasma, though we here address practicable solutions for back-reaction in general. We review the application of the method of adiabatic regularization to the Klein-Gordon and Dirac fields in order to renormalize the expectation value of the current and derive a finite coupled set of ordinary differential equations for the time evolution of the system. Three time scales are involved in the problem and therefore caution is needed to achieve numerical stability for this system. Several physical features, like plasma oscillations and plateaus in the current, appear in the solution. From the plateau of the electric current one can estimate the number of pairs before the onset of plasma oscillations, while the plasma oscillations themselves yield the number of particles from the plasma frequency. We compare the field-theory solution to a simple model based on a relativistic Boltzmann-Vlasov equation, with a particle production source term inferred from the Schwinger particle creation rate and a Pauli-blocking (or Bose-enhancement) factor. This model reproduces very well the time behavior of the electric field and the creation rate of charged pairs of the semiclassical calculation. It therefore provides a simple intuitive understanding of the nature of the solution since nearly all the physical features can be expressed in terms of the classical distribution function.Comment: Old paper, already published, but in an obscure journa

Effective sigma models and lattice Ward identities

We perform a lattice analysis of the Faddeev-Niemi effective action conjectured to describe the low-energy sector of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory. To this end we generate an ensemble of unit vector fields ("color spins") n from the Wilson action. The ensemble does not show long-range order but exhibits a mass gap of the order of 1 GeV. From the distribution of color spins we reconstruct approximate effective actions by means of exact lattice Schwinger-Dyson and Ward identities ("inverse Monte Carlo"). We show that the generated ensemble cannot be recovered from a Faddeev-Niemi action, modified in a minimal way by adding an explicit symmetry-breaking term to avoid the appearance of Goldstone modes.Comment: 25 pages, 17 figures, JHEP styl

Improvement via hypercubic smearing in triplet and sextet QCD

We study non-perturbative improvement in SU(3) lattice gauge theory coupled to fermions in the fundamental and two-index symmetric representations. Our lattice action is defined with hypercubic smeared links incorporated into the Wilson-clover fermion kernel. Using standard Schroedinger-functional techniques we estimate the clover coefficient Csw and find that discretization errors are much smaller than in thin-link theories.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; v3: The analysis has been extensively revised. Conclusions are the same. Final versio

Hot nuclear matter with dilatons

We study hot nuclear matter in a model based on nucleon interactions deriving from the exchange of scalar and vector mesons. The main new feature of our work is the treatment of the scale breaking of quantum chromodynamics through the introduction of a dilaton field. Although the dilaton effects are quite small quantitatively, they affect the high-temperature phase transition appreciably. We find that inclusion of the dilaton leads to a metastable high-density state at zero pressure, similar to that found by Glendenning who considered instead the admixture of higher baryon resonances.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX with equation.sty (optional) and epsfig.sty, 11 figures packed with uufiles. Final, published version (small changes from original preprint