Eur. Phys. J. A (2018) 54: 23
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2018-12473-x

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Assisted vacuum decay by time-dependent electric fields

¹ Institute of Radiation Physics, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, 01328, Dresden, Germany
² Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Dresden, 01068, Dresden, Germany

^* e-mail: a.otto@hzdr.de

Received: 27 September 2017
Accepted: 23 December 2017
Published online: 19 February 2018

Abstract

We consider the vacuum decay by electron-positron pair production in spatially homogeneous, time-dependent electric fields by means of quantum kinetic equations. Our focus is on the impact of various pulse shapes as envelopes of oscillating fields and the assistance effects in multi-scale fields, which are also seen in photons accompanying the creation and motion of pairs.