Assisted Vacuum Decay by Time Dependent Electric Fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates how different time-dependent electric field shapes influence vacuum decay and pair production, highlighting assistance effects in multi-scale fields and photon emissions during pair creation.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of pulse shape effects and assistance phenomena in vacuum decay using quantum kinetic equations for the first time.

Findings

Pulse shape significantly affects pair production rates.

Assistance effects enhance vacuum decay in multi-scale fields.

Photon emissions accompany pair creation and motion.

Abstract

We consider the vacuum decay by electron-positron pair production in spatially homogeneous, time dependent electric fields by means of quantum kinetic equations. Our focus is on the impact of various pulse shapes as envelopes of oscillating fields and the assistance effects in multi-scale fields, which are also seen in photons accompanying the creation and motion of pairs.