Backreaction of Schwinger pair creation in massive QED$_2$

TL;DR

This paper investigates how electric fields decay due to Schwinger pair creation in massive QED$_2$, revealing thresholds for discharge and steady states, and extends previous massless analyses using bosonization techniques.

Contribution

It generalizes the analysis of capacitor discharge via Schwinger pair creation from massless to massive QED$_2$, incorporating fermion mass effects and identifying new thresholds and steady-state behaviors.

Findings

Discharge suppressed below a critical separation in massless QED$_2$

Mass threshold for pair production in massive QED$_2$

Electric field relaxes to a steady state proportional to initial charge

Abstract

Particle-antiparticle pairs can be produced by background electric fields via the Schwinger mechanism provided they are unconfined. If, as in QED in (3+1)-$d$ these particles are massive, the particle production rate is exponentially suppressed below a threshold field strength. Above this threshold, the energy for pair creation must come from the electric field itself which ought to eventually relax to the threshold strength. Calculating this relaxation in a self-consistent manner, however, is difficult. Chu and Vachaspati addressed this problem in the context of capacitor discharge in massless QED$_2$ [1] by utilizing bosonization in two-dimensions. When the bare fermions are massless, the dual bosonized theory is free and capacitor discharge can be analyzed exactly [1], however, special care is required in its interpretation given that the theory exhibits confinement. In this paper we reinterpret the findings of [1], where the capacitors Schwinger-discharge via electrically neutral dipolar meson-production, and generalize this to the case where the fermions have bare masses. Crucially, we note that when the initial charge of the capacitor is large compared to the charge of the fermions, $Q \gg e$, the classical equation of motion for the bosonized model accurately characterizes the dynamics of discharge. For massless QED$_2$, we find that the discharge is suppressed below a critical plate separation that is commensurate with the length scale associated with the meson dipole moment. For massive QED$_2$, we find in addition, a mass threshold familiar from (3+1)-$d$, and show the electric field relaxes to a final steady state with a magnitude proportional to the initial charge. We discuss the wider implications of our findings and identify challenges in extending this treatment to higher dimensions.