Finite temperature Schwinger pair production in coexistent electric and magnetic fields

TL;DR

This paper calculates the rate of particle-antiparticle pair production at finite temperature in combined electric and magnetic fields using semiclassical methods, extending previous results to include magnetic fields and fermions.

Contribution

It introduces a semiclassical worldline instanton approach to compute pair production rates in combined electric and magnetic fields for both scalar and fermionic particles, extending prior work.

Findings

Derived explicit formulas for pair production rates at finite temperature.

Extended previous results to include magnetic fields and fermions.

Validated the approach for weak coupling and field strengths.

Abstract

We compute Schwinger pair production rates at finite temperature, in the presence of homogeneous, concurrent electric and magnetic fields. Expressions are obtained using the semiclassical worldline instanton formalism, to leading order, for spin-$0$ and spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ particles. The derived results are valid for weak coupling and fields. We thereby extend previous seminal results in the literature, to coexistent electric and magnetic fields, and fermions.