Schwinger Vacuum Pair Production in Chirped Laser Pulses

TL;DR

This paper investigates how chirped ultra-short laser pulses influence Schwinger vacuum pair production, analyzing the effects of chirp and carrier phase on particle momentum spectra using complex WKB methods.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the impact of chirp parameters and carrier phase on pair production, advancing understanding of realistic high-intensity laser pulse effects in QED.

Findings

Chirp significantly alters the momentum spectrum of produced particles.

The combined effect of chirp and carrier phase modifies pair production characteristics.

Complex WKB analysis explains the qualitative changes in the potential landscape.

Abstract

The recent developments of high intensity ultra-short laser pulses have raised the hopes of observing Schwinger vacuum pair production which is one of the important non-perturbative phenomena in Quantum electrodynamics (QED). The quantitative analysis of realistic high intensity laser pulses is vital for understanding the effect of the field parameters on the momentum spectrum of the produced particles. In this study, we analyze chirped laser pulses with a sub-cycle structure, and investigate the effects of the chirp parameter on the momentum spectrum of the produced particles. The combined effect of the chirp and carrier phase of the laser pulse is also analyzed. These effects are qualitatively explained by investigating the turning point structure of the potential within the framework of the complex WKB scattering approach to pair production.