Unruh effect and Schwinger pair creation under extreme acceleration by ultraintense lasers

TL;DR

This paper explores the Unruh effect and Schwinger pair creation under extreme acceleration using ultraintense lasers, providing theoretical insights into vacuum polarization, pair production, and thermal interpretations in accelerated frames.

Contribution

It derives QED vacuum polarization, vacuum persistence amplitude, and Schwinger pair creation in an accelerating frame with a constant electric field, linking these phenomena to laboratory simulations of astrophysical conditions.

Findings

Derivation of vacuum polarization and pair creation in accelerated frames

Thermal interpretation of Schwinger pair creation in Rindler space

Potential for laboratory detection of the Unruh effect

Abstract

A detector undergoing a huge acceleration measures a thermal distribution with the Unruh temperature out of the Minkowski vacuum. Though such huge accelerations occur naturally in astrophysics and gravity, one may design untraintense laser facility to detect the Unruh effect and simulate laboratory astrophysics. We derive the QED vacuum polarization and the vacuum persistence amplitude as well as the Schwinger pair creation in an accelerating frame when a constant electric field exists in the Minkowski spacetime. We advance a thermal interpretation of Schwinger pair creation in the Rindler space.