Particle self-bunching in the Schwinger effect in spacetime-dependent electric fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates the Schwinger effect in spacetime-dependent electric fields using the Wigner formalism, revealing a novel charge self-bunching phenomenon during pair creation.

Contribution

First ab initio calculation of the Schwinger effect with space- and time-dependent fields, demonstrating dynamic charge self-bunching in phase space.

Findings

Predicted a new self-bunching effect of charges in phase space.

Calculated the time evolution of charge and particle densities during pair creation.

Demonstrated the impact of electric field structure on pair production dynamics.

Abstract

Non-perturbative electron-positron pair creation (Schwinger effect) is studied based on the equal-time Wigner formalism in 1+1 dimensions. An ab initio calculation of the Schwinger effect in the presence of a simple space- and time-dependent electric field pulse is performed for the first time, allowing for the calculation of the time evolution of observable quantities such as the charge density, the particle number density or the total number of created particles. We predict a new self-bunching effect of charges in phase space due to the spatial and temporal structure of the pulse.