Particle creation in a time-dependent electric field revisited
arXiv:0805.4270 · doi:10.1016/j.aop.2008.10.012
Abstract
We adopt the general formalism for analyzing evolution of gaussian states of quantized fields in time-dependent backgrounds in the Schrodinger picture (presented in detail in arXiv:0708.1233 and 0708.1237) to study the example of a spatially uniform electric field background (in a time-dependent gauge) which is kept turned on for a finite duration of time. In particular, we study the \emph{time-dependent} particle content, defined in terms of the concept of instantaneous eigenstates, and describe how it captures the time evolution of the quantized field modes. The actual particle creation process occurs over a relatively short interval in time, and the particle content saturates rather quickly. We also compare the \emph{power spectrum} of the field modes, computed in the asymptotic limit, with the corresponding situation in a cosmological de Sitter background. Particle creation under the influence of a spiked electric field localized in time, as a particular limiting case of the above general model, is also considered.
RevTeX 4; 9 pages; 4 figures
References in corpus (7)
- Semiclassicality and Decoherence of Cosmological Perturbations
- Vacuum instability in external fields
- Schwinger Pair Production in Electric and Magnetic Fields
- Improved Approximations for Fermion Pair Production in Inhomogeneous Electric Fields
- Initial state of matter fields and trans-Planckian physics: Can CMB observations disentangle the two?
- Particle creation, classicality and related issues in quantum field theory: I. Formalism and toy models
- Does a non-zero tunnelling probability imply particle production in time independent classical electromagnetic backgrounds?