A system is studied in which initially a strong classical electric field
exists within an infinitely-long cylinder and no charges are present.
Subsequently, within the cylinder, pairs of charged particles tunnel out from
the vacuum and the current produced through their acceleration by the field
acts back on the field, setting up plasma oscillations. This yields a rough
model of phenomena that may occur in the pre-equilibrium formation phase of a
quark-gluon plasma. In an infinite volume, this back-reaction has been studied
in a field-theory description, and it has been found that the results of a full
calculation of this sort are well represented in a much simpler transport
formalism. It is the purpose here to explore that comparison for a situation
involving a cylindrical volume of given radius.Comment: 19 pages plus 13 figure
