Pair creation in transport equations using the equal-time Wigner function

Abstract

Based on the equal-time Wigner function for the Klein-Gordon field, we discuss analytically the mechanism of pair creation in a classical electromagnetic field including back-reaction. It is shown that the equations of motion for the Wigner function can be reduced to a variable-frequency oscillator. The pair-creation rate results then from a calculation analogous to barrier penetration in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. The Wigner function allows one to utilize this treatment for the formulation of an effective transport theory for the back-reaction problem with a pair-creation source term including Bose enhancement.

19 pages, LaTeX, UFTP 316/1992

References in corpus (1)

• The phase-space structure of the Klein-Gordon field

Cited by in corpus (10)

• The Quantum Vlasov Equation and its Markov Limit
• Equal-Time Hierarchies in Quantum Transport Theory
• Equal-Time Hierarchies for Quantum Transport Theory
• Back-Reaction In Lightcone QED
• Relativistic Kinetic Equations for Electromagnetic, Scalar and Pseudoscalar Interactions
• Schwinger effect in inhomogeneous electric fields
• Collisional strong-field QED kinetic equations from first principles
• Boson pair production in arbitrarily polarized electric fields
• The phase-space structure of the Klein-Gordon field
• Back-reaction in a cylinder