Effective Action and Schwinger Pair Production in Strong QED

Abstract

Some field theoretical aspects, such as the effective action and Schwinger pair production, are critically reviewed in strong QED. The difference of the boundary conditions on the solutions of the field equation is discussed to result in the effective action both in the Coulomb and time-dependent gauge. Finally, the apparent spin-statistics inversion is also discussed, where the WKB action for bosons (fermions) works well for fermion (boson) pair-production rate.