Analog Sauter-Schwinger effect in semiconductors for spacetime-dependent fields
arXiv:1503.07108 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.97.035203
Abstract
The Sauter-Schwinger effect predicts the creation of electron-positron pairs out of the quantum vacuum via tunneling induced by a strong electric field. Unfortunately, as the required field strength is extremely large, this fundamental prediction of quantum field theory has not been verified experimentally yet. Here, we study under which conditions and approximations the interband tunneling in suitable semiconductors could be effectively governed by the same (Dirac) Hamiltonian, especially for electric fields which depend on space and time. This quantitative analogy would allow us to test some of the predictions (such as the dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect) in this area by means of these laboratory analogs.
19 pages REVTeX, 6 (sub)figures, v3: completely rewritten, now intended for publication, v4: final version
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- Perturbative methods for assisted nonperturbative pair production
- Non-perturbative signatures of non-linear Compton scattering
- Dynamically Assisted Tunneling in the Floquet Picture
- Stimulated vacuum emission and photon absorption in strong electromagnetic fields
- Light-amplified Landau-Zener conductivity in gapped graphene monolayers: a simulacrum of photo-catalyzed vacuum instability
- Euclidean mirrors: enhanced vacuum decay from reflected instantons
- Multiphoton absorption and Rabi oscillations in armchair graphene nanoribbons
- Observation of Analogue Dynamic Schwinger Effect and Non-Perturbative Light Sensing in Lead Halide Perovskites
- Dynamically assisted tunneling in the impulse regime
- The physics of adiabatic particle number in the Schwinger effect
- Condensed-matter analogs of the Sauter--Schwinger effect