Schwinger Pair Production in Pulsed Electric Fields

Abstract

We numerically investigate the temporal behavior and the structure of longitudinal momentum spectrum and the field polarity effect on pair production in pulsed electric fields in scalar quantum electrodynamics (QED). Using the evolution operator expressed in terms of the particle and antiparticle operators, we find the exact quantum states under the influence of electric pulses and measure the number of pairs of the Minkowski particle and antiparticle. The number of pairs, depending on the configuration of electric pulses, exhibits rich structures in the longitudinal momentum spectrum and undergoes diverse dynamical behaviors at the onset of the interaction but always either converges to a momentum-dependent constant or oscillates around a momentum-dependent time average after the completion of fields.