Electron-Positron Pair Production in Structured Pulses of Electric Fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates non-perturbative electron-positron pair production in structured, pulsed electric fields using quantum kinetic formalism, analyzing interference effects and optimizing particle yields through pulse-shaping techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of the dynamically assisted Schwinger effect in complex pulsed fields and explores interference effects and optimization strategies for pair production.

Findings

Interference effects significantly influence pair production yields.

Pulse-shaping can optimize the number of produced pairs.

Numerical solutions of differential equations elucidate the dynamics.

Abstract

The non-perturbative electron-positron pair production in time-dependent electric fields is investigated. The quantum kinetic formalism is employed in order to calculate the electron density for various field configurations. The corresponding set of first order, ordinary differential equations is analyzed and numerically solved. The focus of this study lies on the dynamically assisted Schwinger effect in pulsed electric fields with at least two different time scales. Furthermore, interference effects arising in setups with multiple pulses are examined and first results for an optimization of the particle number yield by pulse-shaping are given.