Thermal Interpretation of Schwinger Effect in Near-Extremal RN Black Hole

We propose a thermal interpretation of the Schwinger effect for charged scalars and spinors in an extremal and near-extremal Reissner-Nordstr{o}m (RN) black hole. The emission of charges has the distribution with an effective temperature determined by the Davies-Unruh temperature for accelerating charges by the electric field and the scalar curvature of AdS_2 from the near-horizon geometry AdS_2 X S^2. We find a charge bound for the extremal micro black hole to remain stable against the Schwinger emission in analogy with the Breitenlohlner-Freedman bound for the AdS space. In the in-out formalism we find the one-loop QED effective action consistent with the vacuum persistence and interpret the vacuum persistence as the leading Schwinger effect and the effect of a charged vacuum of the Coulomb field.

Exact Cosmological Solutions of 4D String Gravity in the String Frame

We have discussed a particular class of exact cosmological solutions of the 4-dimensional low energy string gravity in the string frame. In the vacuum without matter and the 2-form fields, the exact cosmological solutions always give monotonically shrinking universes if the dilaton field is not a constant. However, in the presence of the 2-form fields and/or the radiation-like fluid in the string frame, the exact cosmological solutions show a minimum size of the universe in the evolution, but with an initial cosmological curvature singularity in the string frame.

Conformally Coupled Induced Gravity as an Infrared Fixed Point

We have found that the conformally coupled induced gravity can be an infrared fixed point of induced gravity with Yukawa couplings with matter. The late time cosmology with a uniform mean matter distribution can be described by the conformally coupled induced gravity, which has an emergent global conformal symmetry in the cosmic scale. Aiming to resolve the puzzles for the dark energy, we have obtained exact cosmological equations and determined the dark energy density, the matter density, and the jerk parameter in the present universe based on the recent observational cosmic expansion data for $a/H^{2}$.

The Dark Energy Regulated by Emergent Conformal Symmetry

We have found a mechanism which regulates the dark energy in our universe. With an emergent conformal symmetry, the dark energy density is regulated to the order of a conformal anomaly parameter in the conformally coupled gravity. In the late time cosmological evolution, we have obtained a set of exact cosmological equations which deviate from the Friedmann equations significantly. Based on the recent observational cosmic expansion data, it is shown that the dark energy density is about 1/4 of the matter density at present, which is quite smaller than determined by General Relativity. The jerk parameter at present is also determined as a definite value 0.47.

Nonperturbative QED Effective Action at Finite Temperature

We advance a novel method for the finite-temperature effective action for nonequilibrium quantum fields and find the QED effective action in time-dependent electric fields, where charged pairs evolve out of equilibrium. The imaginary part of the effective action consists of thermal loops of the Fermi-Dirac or Bose-Einstein distribution for the initial thermal ensemble weighted with factors for vacuum fluctuations. And the real part of the effective action is determined by the mean number of produced pairs, vacuum polarization, and thermal distribution. The mean number of produced pairs is equal to twice the imaginary part. We explicitly find the finite-temperature effective action in a constant electric field.

Dark Energy Regulation with Approximate Emergent Conformal Symmetry

A cosmic potential which can relax the vacuum energy is proposed in a framework of scalar-tensor gravity. In the phase of the gravity scalar field around the evolution with an approximate emergent conformal symmetry, we have obtained a set of cosmological equations with the dark energy regulated to the order of a conformal anomaly parameter. Through a role of the cosmic potential, the vacuum energy which could be generated in matter Lagrangian does not contribute to the dark energy in the phase.

Fermion Production in Strong Magnetic Field and its Astrophysical Implications

We calculate the effective potential of a strong magnetic field induced by fermions with anomalous magnetic moments which couple to the electromagnetic field in the form of the Pauli interaction. For a uniform magnetic field, we find the explicit form of the effective potential. It is found that the non-vanishing imaginary part develops for a magnetic field stronger than a critical field and has a quartic form which is quite different from the exponential form of the Schwinger process. We also consider a linear magnetic field configuration as an example of inhomogeneous magnetic fields. We find that the imaginary part of the effective potential is nonzero even below the critical field and shows an exponentially decreasing behavior with respect to the inverse of the magnetic field gradient, which is the non-perturbative characteristics analogous to the Schwinger process. These results imply the instability of the strong magnetic field to produce fermion pairs as a purely magnetic effect. The possible applications to the astrophysical phenomena with strong magnetic field are also discussed.