Enhancement of particle creation in nonlinear resonant cavities

Abstract

The rate of particle creation in a resonantly oscillating cavity is known to be approximately constant at large evolution times. Employing the Schwinger-Keldysh diagrammatic technique, we show that nonlinear interactions generate nonzero quantum averages and significantly enhance this rate. To illustrate this phenomenon, we consider a massless scalar field with a quartic interaction in a one-dimensional cavity with perfectly reflecting walls oscillating at twice the fundamental frequency.