Effects due to a scalar coupling on the particle-antiparticle production in the Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau theory

TL;DR

This paper investigates how scalar coupling influences particle-antiparticle production and boson localization within the Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau formalism, revealing differences from other formalisms and analyzing scattering in mixed potentials.

Contribution

It clarifies misconceptions about the DKP formalism's relation to Klein-Gordon and Proca theories and explores scalar coupling effects on boson scattering and pair production.

Findings

Scalar coupling breaks equivalence with Klein-Gordon and Proca formalisms.

Scalar coupling affects particle-antiparticle production rates.

Boson localization is influenced by scalar potential effects.

Abstract

The Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau formalism with vector and scalar potentials is used to point out a few misconceptions diffused in the literature. It is explicitly shown that the scalar coupling makes the DKP formalism not equivalent to the Klein-Gordon formalism or to the Proca formalism, and that the spin-1 sector of the DKP theory looks formally like the spin-0 sector. With proper boundary conditions, scattering of massive bosons in an arbitrary mixed vector-scalar square step potential is explored in a simple way and effects due to the scalar coupling on the particle-antiparticle production and localization of bosons are analyzed in some detail.