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 b
y 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.
We formulate the second quantization of a charged scalar field in homogeneous, time-dependent electromagnetic fields, in which the Hamiltonian is an infinite system of decoupled, time-dependent oscillators for electric fields, but it is another infin
ite system of coupled, time-dependent oscillators for magnetic fields. We then employ the quantum invariant method to find various quantum states for the charged field. For time-dependent electric fields, a pair of quantum invariant operators for each oscillator with the given momentum plays the role of the time-dependent annihilation and the creation operators, constructs the exact quantum states, and gives the vacuum persistence amplitude as well as the pair-production rate. We also find the quantum invariants for the coupled oscillators for the charged field in time-dependent magnetic fields and advance a perturbation method when the magnetic fields change adiabatically. Finally, the quantum state and the pair production are discussed when a time-dependent electric field is present in parallel to the magnetic field.
We study the time-dependent solitonic gauge fields in scalar QED, in which a charged particle has the energy of reflectionless P{o}sch-Teller potential with natural quantum numbers. Solving the quantum master equation for quadratic correlation functi
ons, we find the exact pair-production rates as polynomials of inverse square of hyperbolic cosine, which exhibit solitonic characteristics of a finite total pair production per unit volume and a non-oscillatory behavior for the entire period, and an exponentially decaying factor in asymptotic regions. It is shown that the solitonic gauge fields are the simplest solutions of the quantum master equation and that the back-reaction of the produced pairs does not destabilize the solitonic gauge fields.
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 effe
ctive 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.
We find the Bogoliubov coefficient from the tunneling boundary condition on a charged particle coupled to a static electric field $E_0 sech^2 (z/L)$ and, using the regularization scheme in Phys. Rev. D 78, 105013 (2008), obtain the exact one-loop eff
ective action in scalar and spinor QED. It is shown that the effective action satisfies the general relation between the vacuum persistence and the mean number of produced pairs. We advance an approximation method for general electric fields and show the duality between the space-dependent and time-dependent electric fields of the same form at the leading order of the effective actions.
We study Schwinger pair production in scalar QED from a uniform electric field in dS_2 with scalar curvature R_{dS} = 2 H^2 and in AdS_2 with R_{AdS} = - 2 K^2. With suitable boundary conditions, we find that the pair-production rate is the same anal
ytic function of the scalar curvature in both cases.
We use the evolution operator method to find the one-loop effective action of scalar and spinor QED in electric field backgrounds in terms of the Bogoliubov coefficient between the ingoing and the outgoing vacua. We obtain the exact one-loop effectiv
e action for a Sauter-type electric field, E_0 sech^2 (t/tau), and show that the imaginary part correctly yields the vacuum persistence. The renormalized effective action shows the general relation between the vacuum persistence and the total mean number of created pairs for the constant and the Sauter-type electric field.
Some astrophysical objects are supposed to have very strong electromagnetic fields above the critical strength. Quantum fluctuations due to strong electromagnetic fields modify the Maxwell theory and particularly electric fields make the vacuum unsta
ble against pair production of charged particles. We study the strong field effect such as the effective action and the Schwinger pair production in scalar QED.
Strong QED has attracted attention recently partly because many astrophysical phenomena have been observed to involve electromagnetic fields beyond the critical strength for electron-positron pair production and partly because terrestrial experiments
will generate electromagnetic fields above or near the critical strength in the near future. In this talk we critically review QED phenomena involving strong external electromagnetic fields. Strong QED is characterized by vacuum polarization due to quantum fluctuations and pair production due to the vacuum instability. A canonical method is elaborated for pair production at zero or finite temperature by inhomogeneous electric fields. An algorithm is advanced to calculate pair production rate for electric fields acting for finite periods of time or localized in space or oscillating electric fields. Finally, strong QED is discussed in astrophysics, in particular, strange stars.
In scalar QED we study the Schwinger pair production from an initial ensemble of charged bosons when an electric field is turned on for a finite period together with or without a constant magnetic field. The scalar QED Hamiltonian depends on time thr
ough the electric field, which causes the initial ensemble of bosons to evolve out of equilibrium. Using the Liouville-von Neumann method for the density operator and quantum states for each momentum mode, we calculate the Schwinger pair-production rate at finite temperature, which is the pair-production rate from the vacuum times a thermal factor of the Bose-Einstein distribution.
