Heidelberg 2015 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 42: Quantum Effects: QED II
Q 42.3: Talk
Wednesday, March 25, 2015, 15:00–15:15, B/SR
Dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect in inhomogeneous electric fields — •Christian Schneider and Ralf Schützhold — Universität Duisburg-Essen
Via the world-line instanton method, we study electron-positron pair creation by a strong (but sub-critical) electric field of the profile E/cosh2(kx) superimposed by a weaker pulse E′/cosh2(ω t). If the temporal Keldysh parameter γω=mω/(qE) exceeds a threshold value γωcrit which depends on the spatial Keldysh parameter γk=mk/(qE), we find a drastic enhancement of the pair creation probability – reporting on what we believe to be the first analytic non-perturbative result for the interplay between temporal and spatial field dependences E(t,x) in the Sauter-Schwinger effect.