Effective Lagrangian for the pseudoscalars interacting with photons in the presence of a background electromagnetic field

Abstract

We attempt to evaluate the effective Lagrangian for a classical background field interacting with the vacuum of two quantum fields. The integration of one of the quantum fields in general leads to a non-local term in the effective Lagrangian and thus becomes intractable during the integration of the other quantum field. We show that $\phi F \tilde{K}$ interaction is an exception. We present the complete calculation for the evaluation of the effective Lagrangian for a pseudoscalar field interacting with photons in the presence of a background electromagnetic field. Expression for the probability of the vacuum breaking down into a pseudoscalar-photon pair is evaluated. We conclude that the gradient of an electric field beyond a certain threshold can give rise to pseudoscalar-photon pair production.