Schwinger Effect with a Transversal Boundary

Abstract

We study the effect of a boundary on pair production by an electric field. In particular, we are interested in the case in which the electric field has a normal component with respect to the boundary. This is essentially more complex than pure tangential fields due to the reflection of created particles against the boundary. In this article we provide the explicit solution for the case of an instantaneous electric pulse which is spatially uniform and normal to a flat surface. We show that pair production exhibits a bulk contribution that accounts for the interference of reflected modes, in addition to a purely boundary term. To conclude, we give an expression for the total particle production due to an irrotational electric pulse in a region delimited by an arbitrary boundary.