Spatially Assisted Schwinger Mechanism and Magnetic Catalysis

TL;DR

This paper uses the worldline formalism to analyze how spatially modulated magnetic fields can enhance particle production and influence vacuum structure, complementing known effects of electric fields.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of spatially modulated magnetic fields' role in magnetic catalysis using the worldline formalism.

Findings

Spatially modulated magnetic fields can enhance particle production.

Magnetic fields can reorganize the vacuum to increase dynamical mass.

The study extends understanding of magnetic catalysis effects.

Abstract

Using the worldline formalism we compute an effective action for fermions under a temporally modulated electric field and a spatially modulated magnetic field. It is known that the former leads to an enhanced Schwinger Mechanism, while we find that the latter can also result in enhanced particle production and even cause a reorganization of the vacuum to acquire a larger dynamical mass in equilibrium which spatially assists the Magnetic Catalysis.