Doubly assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect

Abstract

We study electron-positron pair creation by a strong and slowly varying electric field, assisted by a weaker and more rapidly changing field (e.g., in the keV regime) plus an additional high-energy (say MeV) photon. It turns out that this combination can yield a pair creation probability which is exponentially larger than in the case where one (or more) of the three ingredients is missing. Apart from a deeper understanding of these non-perturbative phenomena, this double enhancement may pave the way for an experimental verification of this fundamental prediction.

5 pages. Version 2: reference and figures added

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Cited by in corpus (23)

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• Dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect - non-perturbative versus perturbative aspects
• On the effect of time-dependent inhomogeneous magnetic fields on the particle momentum spectrum in electron-positron pair production
• Pair production in differently polarized electric fields with frequency chirps
• Ponderomotive effects in multiphoton pair production
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• Observing Thermal Schwinger Pair Production
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• Propagator from Nonperturbative Worldline Dynamics
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• Non-perturbative signatures of non-linear Compton scattering
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• The physics of adiabatic particle number in the Schwinger effect
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