The Schwinger Mechanism in (Anti) de Sitter Spacetimes

TL;DR

This paper provides a new, coordinate-independent derivation of the Schwinger mechanism in 1+1 dimensional de Sitter and Anti de Sitter spacetimes using instanton methods, highlighting a potential link to the Unruh effect.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, flat embedding space approach to derive pair production rates in curved spacetimes, connecting Schwinger and Unruh effects.

Findings

Derived pair production rates in de Sitter and Anti de Sitter spaces.

Established a coordinate-independent derivation method.

Suggested a deep connection between Schwinger and Unruh effects.

Abstract

We present a short and novel derivation of the Schwinger mechanism for particle pair production in $1+1$ dimensional de Sitter and Anti de Sitter spacetimes. We work directly in the flat embedding space and derive the pair production rates in these spacetimes via instanton methods. The derivation is manifestly coordinate independent, and also lends support to the possible deep connection between two conceptually disparate quantum phenomena - Schwinger effect and the Davies-Unruh effect.