# Simulating dynamically assisted production of Dirac pairs in gapped graphene monolayers

## TL;DR

This paper models how combining weak high-frequency and strong low-frequency electric fields in gapped graphene can enhance the production of Dirac quasiparticle pairs, simulating quantum electrodynamics phenomena.

## Contribution

It introduces a quantum kinetic approach to study dynamically assisted pair production in gapped graphene, highlighting the role of quasiparticle mass in the process.

## Key findings

- Weak assisting mode significantly increases pair production.
- Massive Dirac quasiparticles are more effectively produced than in gapless graphene.
- The process demonstrates strong-field QED analogs in condensed matter systems.

## Abstract

In a vicinity of the Fermi surface, graphene layers with bandgaps allow for closely simulating the vacuum of quantum electrodynamics and, thus, its yet unverified strong-field phenomenology with accessible field strengths. This striking feature is exploited to investigate a plausible materialization of dynamically assisted pair production through the analog production of light but massive pairs of Dirac quasiparticles. The process is considered in a field configuration combining a weak high-frequency electric mode and a strong low-frequency electric field oscillating in time. Its theoretical study is carried out from a quantum kinetic approach, similar to the one governing the spontaneous production of pairs in QED. We show that the presence of the weak assisting mode can strongly increase the number of produced massive Dirac pairs as compared with a setup driven by the strong field only. The efficiency of the process is contrasted, moreover, with the case of gapless graphene to highlight the role played by the quasiparticle mass.