A Quantum Kinetic Equation for Particle Production in the  Schwinger Mechanism

Schmidt, S.; Blaschke, D.; Röpke, G.; Smolyansky, S. A.; Prozorkevich, A. V.; Тонеев, В.Д.

doi:10.1142/s0218301398000403

Cited by 221 publications

(293 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…In this model, the back-reaction of created pairs induces a gluon mean field and plasma oscillations (see [44] and references therein). It appears that for calculating particle creation in this model one needs to apply the general formalism of QFT for pair production at a finite temperature and at zero temperature both from vacuum and from many-particle states (see, physical reasons for that in [26,36,45]). The consideration of various time scales in heavy-ion collisions shows that the stabilization time T 0 is far smaller than the period of plasma and mean-field oscillations.…”

Section: Soft Parton Production By Su(3) Chromoelectric Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Density matrix of a quantum field in a particle-creating background

2008

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We consider the time evolution of a quantized field in backgrounds that violate the vacuum stability (particle-creating backgrounds). Our aim is to study the exact form of the final quantum state (the density operator at a final instant of time) that has emerged from a given arbitrary initial state (from a given arbitrary density operator at the initial time instant) in the course of the evolution. We find a generating functional that allows us to have the density operators for any initial state. Averaging over states of a subsystem of antiparticles (particles), we obtain explicit forms for reduced density operators for subsystems of particles (antiparticles). Studying one-particle correlation functions, we establish a one-to-one correspondence between these functions and the reduced density operators. It is shown that in the general case a presence of bosons (e.g. gluons) in an initial state increases the creation rate of the same kind of bosons. We discuss the question (and its relation to the initial stage of quark-gluon plasma formation) whether a thermal form of one-particle distribution can appear even if the final state of the complete system is not a thermal equilibrium. In this respect, we discuss some cases when a pair creation by an electric-like field can mimic a one-particle thermal distribution. We apply our technics to some QFT problems in slowly varying electric-like backgrounds: electric, SU(3) chromoelectric, and metric. In particular, we study the time and temperature behavior of mean numbers of created particles provided switching on and off effects of the external field are negligible. It is shown that at high temperatures and in slowly varying electric fields the rate of particle creation is essentially time-dependent.

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Section: Soft Parton Production By Su(3) Chromoelectric Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Density matrix of a quantum field in a particle-creating background

2008

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“…Particle production by the flux tube is described by a source term and in quantum field theory that source term is non-Markovian [10,11,12,13,14,15]; i.e., essentially nonlocal in time. This feature can be important when the fields are strong.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plasma production and thermalisation in a strong field

et al. 2001

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Aspects of the formation and equilibration of a quark-gluon plasma are explored using a quantum kinetic equation, which involves a non-Markovian, Abelian source term for quark and antiquark production and, for the collision term, a relaxation time approximation that defines a time-dependent quasi-equilibrium temperature and collective velocity. The strong Abelian field is determined via the simultaneous solution of Maxwell's equation. A particular feature of this approach is the appearance of plasma oscillations in all thermodynamic observables. Their presence can lead to a sharp increase in the time-integrated dilepton yield.

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“…This possibility can only be explored using methods of nonequilibrium quantum field theory [10] or an equivalent quantum kinetic theory [11,12,13]. The latter procedure was employed in Ref.…”

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confidence: 99%

Quantum Effects with an X-Ray Free-Electron Laser

2002

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A quantum kinetic equation coupled with Maxwell's equation is used to estimate the laser power required at an XFEL facility to expose intrinsically quantum effects in the process of QED vacuum decay via spontaneous pair production. A 9 TW-peak XFEL laser with photon energy 8.3 keV could be sufficient to initiate particle accumulation and the consequent formation of a plasma of spontaneously produced pairs. The evolution of the particle number in the plasma will exhibit nonMarkovian aspects of the strong-field pair production process and the plasma's internal currents will generate an electric field whose interference with that of the laser leads to plasma oscillations.PACS numbers: 42.55. Vc, 41.60.Cr, 11.15.Tk X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) facilities are planned at SLAC [1]: namely the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), and as part of the e − e + linear collider project (TESLA) at DESY [2]. They propose to provide narrow bandwidth, high power, short-length laser X-ray pulses, with good spatial coherence and tunable energy. It is anticipated that the realisable values of these parameters will enable studies of completely new fields in X-ray science, with applications in atomic and molecular physics, plasma physics, and many other fields [2].A unique ability of these facilities is to provide very high peak power densities. For example, a P = 0.2 TWpeak laser at a wavelength of λ = 0.4 nm, values which are reckoned achievable with current technology [2], can conceivably produce a peak electric field strengthBoosting P to 1 TW and reducing λ to 0.1 nm, which is theoretically possible [3], would yield an order-ofmagnitude increase: E g = 1.1 × 10 17 V/m. Electric fields of this strength are sufficient for an experimental verification of the spontaneous decay of the QED vacuum [4,5,6,7].It is a long standing prediction that the QED vacuum is unstable in the presence of a strong, constant electric field, decaying via the production of e − e + pairs [8]. In such fields, appreciable particle production is certain if the strength exceeds E cr := m 2 e /e = 1.3 × 10 18 V/m. (We subsequently useh = c = 1.) The proposed XFEL facilities could generate E ≈ 0.1 E cr . (NB. Here "constant" means that the field must be uniform over timeand length-scales much greater than the electron's Compton wavelength: 1/m e ≈ 0.4 pm.)A single laser beam cannot produce pairs [9]. (For a light-like field F µν F µν = 0 and hence the vacuum survival probability is equal to one.) Nevertheless, if two or more coherent beams are crossed and form a standing wave at their intersection, one can hypothetically produce a region in which there is a strong electric field but no magnetic field. The radius of this spot volume is diffraction limited to be larger than the laser beams' wavelength: r σ > ∼ λ, and the interior electric field could be approximately constant on length-scales approaching this magnitude. The period of the electric field is also determined by λ. Hence at an XFEL facility one might satisfy the length-scale uniformity conditions no...

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A Quantum Kinetic Equation for Particle Production in the Schwinger Mechanism

Cited by 221 publications

References 22 publications

Density matrix of a quantum field in a particle-creating background

Density matrix of a quantum field in a particle-creating background

Plasma production and thermalisation in a strong field

Quantum Effects with an X-Ray Free-Electron Laser

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