Afterglow of the dynamical Schwinger process: soft photons amass

Abstract

We consider the conversion of an electric field into photons as a secondary probe of the dynamical Schwinger process. In spatially homogeneous electric fields, quantum fluctuations of electron-positron ($e^{+}{e}^{-}$) pairs are lifted on the mass shell leaving asymptotically a small finite pair density. The $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ dynamics in turn couples to the quantized photon field and drives its on-shell mode occupation. The spectral properties of the emerging asymptotic photons accompanying the Schwinger process are calculated in lowest-order perturbation theory. Soft photons in the optical range are produced amass in the sub critical region, thus providing a promising discovery avenue, e.g. for laser parameters of the Extreme Light Initiative (ELI-NP) to be put in operation soon.

7 pages, 3 figures

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Cited by in corpus (14)

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• Radiation signal accompanying the Schwinger effect
• Assisted Vacuum Decay by Time Dependent Electric Fields
• Non-perturbative signatures of non-linear Compton scattering
• Stimulated vacuum emission and photon absorption in strong electromagnetic fields
• Response of the QED(2) Vacuum to a Quench: Long-term Oscillations of the Electric Field and the Pair Creation Rate
• QFT approach to dressed particle processes in preheating and non-perturbative mechanism in kinematically-forbidden regime
• The physics of adiabatic particle number in the Schwinger effect
• Long-time soliton dynamics via a coarse-grained space-time method
• More on scattering processes of dressed particles with a time-dependent mass