https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20147803001
Describing pair production in inhomogeneous external fields with the Dirac-Heisenberg-Wigner formalism
1 Loránd Eötvös University, H-1117, Budapest, Hungary
2 Wigner RCP, Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics, P.O. Box 49, Budapest 1525, Hungary
3 Wigner RCP, Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, P.O. Box 49, Budapest 1525, Hungary
4 Department of Physics, Western Michigan University, 1903 W. Michigan Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI 49008
a email: berenyi.daniel@wigner.mta.hu
Published online: 25 September 2014
In this contribution we present results on pair production from vacuum in QED in case of inhomogeneous external electric fields. The central tool of our description is the relativistic one particle single-time Wigner-function, that describes the evolution of the e+e− densities in phase-space. We compare the influence of homogeneous and inhomogeneous external fields, and find that the inhomogeneity near the Compton-scale increases particle production proportionally to the duration of the electric pulse. We also find, that when the inhomogeneity is restricted to a single direction, a significant component of the pair yield originates from the edge or surface where the electric field gradients are large, in agreement with the prediction of Heisenberg.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2014
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
