Axion assisted Schwinger effect

Abstract

We point out an enhancement of the pair production rate of charged fermions in a strong electric field in the presence of time dependent classical axion-like background field, which we call axion assisted Schwinger effect. While the standard Schwinger production rate is proportional to $\exp (-\pi (m^2+p_T^2)/E)$, with $m$ and $p_T$ denoting the fermion mass and its momentum transverse to the electric field $E$, the axion assisted Schwinger effect can be enhanced at large momenta to $\exp (-\pi m^2/E)$. The origin of this enhancement is a coupling between the fermion spin and its momentum, induced by the axion velocity. As a non-trivial validation of our result, we show its invariance under field redefinitions associated with a chiral rotation and successfully reproduce the chiral anomaly equation in the presence of helical electric and magnetic fields. We comment on implications of this result for axion cosmology, focussing on axion inflation and axion dark matter detection.

arXiv comment18 pages + appendices, 5 figures

References in corpus (30)

• New Observables for Direct Detection of Axion Dark Matter
• Dynamically assisted Schwinger mechanism
• Bosonic super-WIMPs as keV-scale dark matter
• Gauge Fields and Inflation
• Gauge Field Production in Axion Inflation: Consequences for Monodromy, non-Gaussianity in the CMB, and Gravitational Waves at Interferometers
• Primordial magnetic fields from pseudo-Goldstone bosons
• Particle production during inflation and gravitational waves detectable by ground-based interferometers
• Chromo-Natural Inflation: Natural inflation on a steep potential with classical non-Abelian gauge fields
• N-flationary magnetic fields
• Gravitational waves at interferometer scales and primordial black holes in axion inflation
• New Strong-Field QED Effects at ELI: Nonperturbative Vacuum Pair Production
• Gauge field production in SUGRA inflation: local non-Gaussianity and primordial black holes
• Axion-induced effects in atoms, molecules and nuclei: Parity nonconservation, anapole moments, electric dipole moments, and spin-gravity and spin-axion momentum couplings
• The Stokes Phenomenon and Schwinger Vacuum Pair Production in Time-Dependent Laser Pulses
• Non-Gaussianities and chiral gravitational waves in natural steep inflation
• Interference Effects in Schwinger Vacuum Pair Production for Time-Dependent Laser Pulses
• Gauge Field and Fermion Production during Axion Inflation
• PBH dark matter from axion inflation
• A numerical study of pseudoscalar inflation with an axion-gauge field coupling
• Chiral Anomaly, Schwinger Effect, Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian, and application to axion inflation
• Super-Adiabatic Particle Number in Schwinger and de Sitter Particle Production
• Phenomenology of fermion production during axion inflation
• Dissipative Axial Inflation
• Axial Ward identity and the Schwinger mechanism -- Applications to the real-time chiral magnetic effect and condensates
• Emerging chromo-natural inflation
• Dynamics of the Chiral Magnetic Effect in a weak magnetic field
• Pure Natural Inflation
• Warm dark energy
• Chiral Anomaly and Schwinger Effect in Non-Abelian Gauge Theories
• The Different Regimes of Axion Gauge Field Inflation

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Gravitational Waves and Dark Photon Dark Matter from Axion Rotations
• Chiral effects in astrophysics and cosmology
• Gravitational wave background from vacuum and thermal fluctuations during axion-like inflation
• Cosmological Relaxation through the Dark Axion Portal
• Gibbs entropy from entanglement in electric quenches
• Photon propagator in de Sitter space in the general covariant gauge
• On Sphaleron Heating in the Presence of Fermions
• Production and backreaction of massive fermions during axion inflation with non-Abelian gauge fields
• Semiclassical analysis of axion-assisted and axion-driven pair production
• Axion anomalies
• Transient phenomena in the axion assisted Schwinger effect
• Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian under an axial gauge field
• The Stochastic Schwinger Effect
• Study on axial fields in the dynamically assisted Schwinger effect
• When does the Schwinger Preheating Occur?
• The Role of the Schwinger Effect in Superradiant Axion Lasers