Abstract
Abstract Using the Dirac–Heisenberg–Wigner formalism, effects of the asymmetric pulse shape on the generation of electron-positron pairs in three typical polarized fields, i.e., linear, middle elliptical and circular fields, are investigated. Two kinds of asymmetries for the falling pulse length, short and elongated, are studied. We find that the interference effect disappears with the shorter pulse length and that the peak value of the momentum spectrum is concentrated in the center of the momentum space. In the case of the extending falling pulse length, a multiring structure without interference appears in the momentum spectrum. Research results show that the momentum spectrum is very sensitive to the asymmetry of the pulse as well as to the polarization of the fields. We also find that the number density of electron-positron pairs under different polarizations is sensitive to the asymmetry of the electric field. For the short falling pulse, the number density can be significantly enhanced by over two orders of magnitude. These results could be useful in planning high-power and/or high-intensity laser experiments.
Highlights
In intense electromagnetic fields the vacuum state is unstable and spontaneously generates electron-positron (e−e+) pairs
We find that the number density of e−e+ pairs in different polarizations increases with decreasing pulse length ratio value k
In this study we have investigated the effects of the asymmetric pulse shape on the momentum spectrum of created e−e+ pairs in strong electric fields for three different polarization fields, linearly, middle elliptically and circularly polarized fields, on the momentum spectrum of created particles by applying the DHW formalism
Summary
In intense electromagnetic fields the vacuum state is unstable and spontaneously generates electron-positron (e−e+) pairs This is known as the Schwinger effect, which is one of the highly nontrivial predictions in quantum electrodynamics (QED)[1,2,3]. Many exploratory studies of the Schwinger effect based on a number of different theoretical techniques have been undertaken, for example, within the quantum kinetic approach[9,10,11] and the real time Dirac–Heisenberg–Wigner (DHW) formalism[12,13,14,15,16,17,18], the WKB approximation[19, 20] as well as the worldline instanton technique[21]. In this paper we further investigate the Schwinger effect by considering the asymmetric pulse shape with Gaussian envelope and different polarizations. We mainly consider asymmetric pulse shape effects on pair production in different polarizations, e.g., linear, elliptic and circular polarizations.
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