Pair creation in electric fields

TL;DR

This paper reviews the phenomenon of pair creation in electric fields, highlighting recent advances in computational methods like the worldline instanton formalism and the Dirac-Heisenberg-Wigner approach for analyzing complex field configurations and particle formation.

Contribution

It introduces two recent methodological developments for calculating pair creation rates and studying particle formation in electromagnetic fields.

Findings

The worldline instanton formalism enables calculations for complex field configurations.

The adapted Dirac-Heisenberg-Wigner formalism allows detailed spatiotemporal analysis of particle formation.

Abstract

Sauter-Schwinger pair creation in electromagnetic fields is a fundamental prediction of QED and one of the motivations for the present efforts in constructing super-strong lasers. I will give a historical review of the subject, and then focus on two recent developments. The first one is the worldline instanton formalism, a sophisticated version of the WKB approximation that makes it possible to calculate the pair creation rate for complicated field configurations. The second one is an adaptation of the Dirac-Heisenberg-Wigner formalism suitable for a detailed study of the formation of real particles in time and space.