Complex worldline instantons and quantum interference in vacuum pair production

Cesim K. Dumlu and Gerald V. Dunne
Phys. Rev. D 84, 125023 – Published 16 December 2011

Abstract

We describe in detail a physical situation in which instantons are necessarily complex, not just Wick rotations of classical solutions to Euclidean spacetime. These complex instantons arise in the semiclassical evaluation of vacuum pair production rates, based on Feynman’s worldline path integral formulation. Even though the path integral is a sum over all real closed trajectories in spacetime, the semiclassical description of nonperturbative pair production is dominated by closed classical trajectories that are generically complex. These closed trajectories contain segments associated with nonperturbative instanton suppression factors as well as segments producing phase factors that incorporate quantum interference effects. For a class of time-dependent electric fields we implement this procedure and demonstrate excellent quantitative agreement with alternative methods.

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  • Received 7 October 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.84.125023

© 2011 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Cesim K. Dumlu and Gerald V. Dunne

  • Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-3046, USA

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Issue

Vol. 84, Iss. 12 — 15 December 2011

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