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 unstable 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.
We review the one-loop effective action in scalar QED and the Schwinger effect in a uniform electric field in a two-dimensional (anti-) de Sitter space. The Schwinger effect has a thermal interpretation in terms of the effective temperature introduced by Cai and Kim. We propose a method to find the density of states for the charged scalar and obtain the QED action density and the pair-production rate in the in-out formalism.
In three-dimensional QED, which is analyzed in the 1/$N$ expansion, we obtain a sufficient and necessary condition for a nontrivial solution of the Dyson-Schwinger equation to be chiral symmetry breaking solution. In the derivation, a normalization condition of the Goldstone bound state is used. It is showed that the existent analytical solutions satisfy this condition.
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 through 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 …
Some field theoretical aspects, such as the effective action and Schwinger pair production, are critically reviewed in strong QED. The difference of the boundary conditions on the solutions of the field equation is discussed to result in the effective action both in the Coulomb and time-dependent gauge. Finally, the apparent spin-statistics inversion is also discussed, where the WKB action for bosons (fermions) works well for fermion (boson) pair-production rate.
In this paper, we discuss the noncommutative QED$_2$ in the S-matrix framework. We are interested in perturbatively proving that the exact Schwinger mass $μ^2=\frac{e^2}π$ does not receive noncommutative corrections to any order in loop expansion. In this sense, the S-matrix approach is useful since it allows us to work with the effective action $Γ[A]$ (interaction term) to compute the corresponding gauge field 1PI two-point function at higher orders. Furthermore, by means of $α^*$-cohomology, we generalize the QED$_2$ S-matrix analysis in the Moyal star product to all translation-invariant st…
Using the Fock-Schwinger proper time method, we calculate the induced Chern-Simons term arising from the Lorentz- and CPT-violating sector of quantum electrodynamics with a $b_μ\barψγ^μγ_5 ψ$ term. Our result to all orders in $b$ coincides with a recent linear-in-$b$ calculation by Chaichian et al. [hep-th/0010129 v2]. The coincidence was pointed out by Chung [Phys. Lett. {\bf B461} (1999) 138] and Pérez-Victoria [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 83} (1999) 2518] in the standard Feynman diagram calculation with the nonperturbative-in-$b$ propagator.
An update is given on our long-term effort to perform a three-loop check on the Affleck-Alvarez-Manton/Lebedev-Ritus exponentiation conjecture for the imaginary part of the Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian, using 1+1 dimensional QED as a toy model. After reviewing the history and significance of the conjecture, we present trigonometric integral representations for the single electron loop contributions to the three-loop Lagrangian, and develop a symmetry-based method for the calculation of their weak-field expansion coefficients.
I shortly review the worldline instanton method for calculating Schwinger pair production rates in (i) one-loop QED (ii) multiloop QED and (iii) one-loop open string theory.
A representation for the fermionic determinant of the massive Schwinger model, or $QED_2$, is obtained that makes a clean separation between the Schwinger model and its massive counterpart. From this it is shown that the index theorem for $QED_2$ follows from gauge invariance, that the Schwinger model's contribution to the determinant is canceled in the weak field limit, and that the determinant vanishes when the field strength is sufficiently strong to form a zero-energy bound state.
The composite operator effective potential is compared with the conventional Dyson-Schwinger method as a calculational tool for (2+1)-dimensional quantum electrodynamics. It is found that when the fermion propagator ansatz is put directly into the effective potential, it reproduces exactly the usual gap equations derived in the Dyson-Schwinger approach.
Based on the real-time formalism, especially, on Thermo Field Dynamics, we derive the Schwinger-Dyson gap equation for the fermion propagator in QED and Four-Fermion model at finite-temperature and -density. We discuss some advantage of the real-time formalism in solving the self-consistent gap equation, in comparison with the ordinary imaginary-time formalism. Once we specify the vertex function, we can write down the SD equation with only continuous variables without performing the discrete sum over Matsubara frequencies which cannot be performed in advance without further approximation in t…
An Abelian gauge theory with Chern-Simons term is investigated for a four-component Dirac fermion in 1+2 dimensions. The Ball-Chiu (BC) vertex function is employed to modify the rainbow-ladder approximation for the Schwinger-Dyson (SD) equation. We numerically solve the SD equation and show the gauge dependence for the resulting phase boundary for the parity and the chiral symmetry.
We study unquenched QED in four dimensions using renormalised Schwinger-Dyson equations and focus on the behaviour of the fermion and photon propagators. For this purpose we use an improved Kizilersu-Pennington (KP) vertex which respects gauge invariance, multiplicative renormalizability for the massless case, agrees with perturbation theory in the weak coupling regime and is free of kinematic singularities. We find that the KP vertex performs very well as expected specially in comparison with other vertex choices. We find that the Landau pole problem familiar from perturbative QED persists in…
The behaviour of the photon renormalization function in strong coupling QED has been recently studied by Kondo, Mino and Nakatani. We find that the sharp decrease in its behaviour at intermediate photon momenta is an artefact of the method used to remove the quadratic divergence in the vacuum polarization. We discuss how this can be avoided in numerical studies of the Schwinger-Dyson equations.
We use the evolution operator method to find the Schwinger pair-production rate at finite temperature in scalar and spinor QED by counting the vacuum production, the induced production and the stimulated annihilation from the initial ensemble. It is shown that the pair-production rate for each state is factorized into the mean number at zero temperature and the initial thermal distribution for bosons and fermions.
The mass spectrum of the noncommutative QED in two-dimensional Euclidean $\mathbb{R}^{2}$ space is derived first in a perturbative approach at one-loop level and then in a nonperturbative approach using the equivalent bosonized noncommutative effective action. It turns out that the mass spectrum of noncommutative QED in two dimensions reduces to a single non-interacting meson with mass $M_γ=\frac{g}{\sqrtπ}$, as in commutative Schwinger model.
Any practical application of the Schwinger-Dyson equations to the study of $n$-point Green's functions of a field theory requires truncations, the best known being finite order perturbation theory. Strong coupling studies require a different approach. In the case of QED, gauge covariance is a powerful constraint. By using a spectral representation for the massive fermion propagator in QED, we are able to show that the constraints imposed by the Landau-Khalatnikov-Fradkin transformations are linear operations on the spectral densities. Here we formally define these group operations and show wit…
We study the influence of the anomaly on the physical quantum picture of the generalized chiral Schwinger model defined on the circle. We show that the anomaly i) results in the background linearly rising electric field and ii) makes the spectrum of the physical Hamiltonian nonrelativistic without a massive boson. The physical matter fields acquire exotic statistics . We construct explicitly the algebra of the Poincare generators and show that it differs from the Poincare one. We exhibit the role of the vacuum Berry phase in the failure of the Poincare algebra to close. We prove that, in spite…
The semi-classical phase structure of two-dimensional QED and QCD are briefly reviewed. The non-abelian theory is reformulated to closely resemble the Schwinger model. It is shown that, contrary to the abelian theory, the phase structure of two-dimensional QCD is unaffected by the structure of the theta vacuum. We make parallel calculations in the two theories and conclude that massless Schwinger model is in the screening and the massive theory is in the confining phase, whereas both massless and massive QCD are in the screening phase.
Using the nonperturbative Schwinger-Dyson equation, we show that chiral symmetry in weak-coupling massless QED is dynamically broken by a constant but arbitrarily strong external magnetic field.
The lattice regularized pure gauge compact U(1) theory is an ideal laboratory to explore how confinement is realized as its phase diagram has a confined and a deconfined phase that depends on the value of the coupling constant, i.e. on $β$. Herein, the connection between confinement and positivity violation through the Schwinger function associated with the Landau gauge photon propagator is investigated. The simulations reported show a very clear link between the realization of confinement and positivity violation of the photon Schwinger function and, therefore, of the photon Källén-Lehmann sp…
The one-loop effective action of QED is calculated by the Schwinger method in Krein space quantization. We show that the effective action is naturally fnite and regularized. It also coincides with the renormalized solution which was derived by Schwinger.
With the introduction of a spectral representation, the Schwinger-Dyson equation (SDE) for the fermion propagator is formulated in Minkowski space in QED. After imposing the on-shell renormalization conditions, analytic solutions for the fermion propagator spectral functions are obtained in four dimensions with a renormalizable version of the Gauge Technique anzatz for the fermion-photon vertex in the quenched approximation in the Landau gauge. Despite the limitations of this model, having an explicit solution provides a guiding example of the fermion propagator with the correct analytic struc…
We present a comprehensive numerical study of dynamical mass generation for unquenched QED in four dimensions, in the absence of four-fermion interactions, using the Dyson--Schwinger approach. We begin with an overview of previous investigations of criticality in the quenched approximation. To this we add an analysis using a new fermion-antifermion-boson interaction ansatz, the Kizilersu-Pennington (KP) vertex, developed for an unquenched treatment. After surveying criticality in previous unquenched studies, we investigate the performance of the KP vertex in dynamical mass generation using a r…
We use Schwinger's formula, introduced by himself in the early fifties to compute effective actions for QED, and recently applied to the Casimir effect, to obtain the partition functions for both the bosonic and fermionic harmonic oscillator.
Chiral Schwinger model with the Faddeevian anomaly is considered. It is found that imposing a chiral constraint this model can be expressed in terms of chiral boson. The model when expressed in terms of chiral boson remains anomalous and the Gauss law of which gives anomalous Poisson brackets between itself. In spite of that a systematic BRST quantization is possible. The Wess-Zumino term corresponding to this theory appears automatically during the process of quantization. A gauge invariant reformulation of this model is also constructed. Unlike the former one gauge invariance is done here wi…
We discuss the structure of beta functions as determined by the recursive nature of Dyson--Schwinger equations turned into an analysis of ordinary differential equations, with particular emphasis given to quantum electrodynamics. In particular we determine when a separatrix for solutions to such ODEs exists and clarify the existence of Landau poles beyond perturbation theory. Both are determined in terms of explicit conditions on the asymptotics for the growth of skeleton graphs.
In principle, calculation of a full Green's function in any field theory requires knowledge of the infinite set of multi-point Green's functions, unless one can find some way of truncating the corresponding Schwinger-Dyson equations. For the fermion and boson propagators in QED this requires an {\it ansatz} for the full three point vertex. Here we illustrate how the properties of gauge invariance, gauge covariance and multiplicative renormalizability impose severe constraints on this fermion-boson interaction, allowing a consistent truncation of the propagator equations. We demonstrate how the…
We carry out an investigation imposing a chiral constraint in the phase space of vector and axial-vector Schwinger model. We find that resulting model is identical to gauge non-invariant model which was obtained by the imposition of chiral constraint in the phase-space of in Chiral Schwinger model with the parameter-free Faddeevian anomaly. Three different models having different types of interaction between the matter and gauge field become indistinguishable under a chiral constraint at the quantum mechanical level. The resulting gauge non-invariant model has an equivalent gauge-invariant ver…
We study the out-of-equilibrium properties of $1+1$ dimensional quantum electrodynamics (QED), discretized via the staggered-fermion Schwinger model with an Abelian $\mathbb{Z}_{n}$ gauge group. We look at two relevant phenomena: first, we analyze the stability of the Dirac vacuum with respect to particle/antiparticle pair production, both spontaneous and induced by an external electric field; then, we examine the string breaking mechanism. We observe a strong effect of confinement, which acts by suppressing both spontaneous pair production and string breaking into quark/antiquark pairs, indic…
Potential non-relativistic Quantum Electrodynamics and the Keldysh-Schwinger formalism is used to derive Kadanoff-Baym-like equations for two-body field correlators. These cover the out-off-equilibrium dynamics and spectrum of heavy particle-antiparticle pairs under ultra-soft transitions inside a plasma background, whose temperature is much smaller compared to the typical relative pair momentum. It is shown that the dynamical equation for the pair phase-space distribution function, containing recombination and dissociation via the electric dipole interactions, is consistent with the previous …
We present some comments on Schwinger's calculation of electron-positron production in a prescribed constant electric field. The range of validity of 2 Im \mathcal{L}^(1)(E) is discussed thoroughly and limiting cases are provided.
The one-loop effective action of QED obtained by Euler and Heisenberg and by Schwinger has been expressed by an asymptotic perturbative series which is divergent. In this letter we present a non-perturbative but convergent series of the effective action. With the convergent series we establish the existence of the manifest electric-magnetic duality in the one loop effective action of QED.
Counterparts of the Dyson-Schwinger equations for scalar QED in an external electromagnetic field are derived. Exact structure and diagrammatic interpretation of the corresponding mass and polarization operators are obtained. It is shown that in the presence of an external field the final equations include an exact three-photon interaction vertex.
We obtain, through zeta function methods, the one-loop effective action for massive Dirac fields in the presence of a uniform, but otherwise general, electromagnetic background. After discussing renormalization, we compare our zeta function result with Schwinger's proper time approach.
We present new, non trivial generalizations of the recent Tomaras, Tsamis and Woodard extension of the original Schwinger formula for charged pair production in a constant field.
The Schwinger-Dyson equations connecting free and full Green functions and vertex parts widely were used in QED for finding full Green functions under different conditions. Undoubtedly, the same approach should leads to derivation of many useful information about other models of QFT. In this work we present some technique based on variational equations for effective action to derive many different Schwinger-Dyson type equations in QFT models such as nonlinear sigma model and scalar field theory.
We introduce a gauge invariant and string independent two-point fermion correlator which is analyzed in the context of the Schwinger model (QED_2). We also derive an effective infrared worldline action for this correlator, thus enabling the computation of its infrared behavior. Finally, we briefly discuss possible perspectives for the string independent correlator in the QED_3 effective models for the normal state of HTc superconductors.
We describe the origins of recurrence relations between field theory amplitudes in terms of the construction of Feynman diagrams. In application we derive recurrence relations for the amplitudes of QED which hold to all loop orders and for all combinations of external particles. These results may also be derived from the Schwinger-Dyson equations.
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 analytic function of the scalar curvature in both cases.
We present a simple proof that the imaginary part of the world-line path integral which computes the rate of Schwinger pair production of charged particles in a constant electric field, is given exactly by the semiclassical WKB limit.
Particle-antiparticle pairs can be produced by background electric fields via the Schwinger mechanism provided they are unconfined. If, as in QED in (3+1)-$d$ these particles are massive, the particle production rate is exponentially suppressed below a threshold field strength. Above this threshold, the energy for pair creation must come from the electric field itself which ought to eventually relax to the threshold strength. Calculating this relaxation in a self-consistent manner, however, is difficult. Chu and Vachaspati addressed this problem in the context of capacitor discharge in massles…
It is suggested that Schwinger's (1951) vacuum persistence probability against pair production by an intense but constant electric field is a very good approximation to the corresponding quantity if the field does not vary appreciably over distances less than m/e/E/5 pages
Several years ago Schwinger proposed a physical mechanism for sonoluminescence in terms of photon production due to changes in the properties of the quantum-electrodynamic (QED) vacuum arising from a collapsing dielectric bubble. This mechanism can be re-phrased in terms of the Casimir effect and has recently been the subject of considerable controversy. The present paper probes Schwinger's suggestion in detail: Using the sudden approximation we calculate Bogolubov coefficients relating the QED vacuum in the presence of the expanded bubble to that in the presence of the collapsed bubble. In th…
We derive all covariant and consistent divergence and commutator anomalies of chiral QED$_2$ within the framework of canonical quantization of the fermions. Further, we compute the time evolution of all occurring operators and find that all commutators evolve canonically. We comment on the relation of our results to the finding of a nontrivial U(1)-curvature in gauge-field space.
We study the open string pair production between two D3 branes, which will give rise to similar effect as Schwinger pair production for observers on one of the D3 branes. The D3 branes are placed parallel at a distance, and they are carrying world-volume electromagnetic fluxes that takes general form. We derive the pair production rate by computing the interaction amplitude between the D3 branes. We discussed how to maximize the pair production rate in this general case. We also mentioned that the general result can be used to describe other system such as D3-D1, where the pair production is u…
The Schwinger pairs production rate is calculated numerically in the soft-wall model with the help of a simpler method in determining the soft-wall's position beyond which probe strings connecting the Schwinger pairs do not fall into. Behaviours of the production rate in both the upper critical region and the middle linear part are studied carefully. The latter exhibits interesting new features un-noted previously. All results are presented in comparisons with hard-wall models.
Julian Schwinger's influence on twentieth century science is profound and pervasive. Of course, he is most famous for his renormalization theory of quantum electrodynamics, for which he shared the Nobel Prize with Richard Feynman and Sin-itiro Tomonaga. But although this triumph was undoubtedly his most heroic work, his legacy lives on chiefly through subtle and elegant work in classical electrodynamics, quantum variational principles, proper-time methods, quantum anomalies, dynamical mass generation, partial symmetry, and more. Starting as just a boy, he rapidly became the pre-eminent nuclear…
We consider a theory of scalar QED on a spatially compact 1+1-dimensional spacetime. By considering a constant electric field pointing down the compact dimension, we compute the quantum effective action by integrating out the scalar degrees of freedom in the Euclidean sector. Working in the saddle-point approximation we uncover two novel branches/physical regimes upon analytically continuing back to real time and discover a new result, hitherto unreported in previous literature. Implications of our results are discussed.
We study the Schwinger pair production in confining theories. The production rate in an external electric field E is numerically evaluated by using the holographic description. There exist two kinds of critical values of the electric field, i) E=E_c, above which there is no potential barrier and particles are freely generated, ii) E=E_s, below which the confining string tension dominates the electric field and the pair production does not occur. We argue the universal exponents associated with the critical behaviors.
Invariant (nonplanar) anomaly of noncommutative QED is reexamined. It is found that just as in ordinary gauge theory UV regularization is needed to discover anomalies, in noncommutative case, in addition, an IR regularization is also required to exhibit existence of invariant anomaly. Thus resolving the controversy in the value of invariant anomaly, an expression for the unintergrated anomaly is found. Schwinger terms of the current algebra of the theory are derived.
We discuss in this article the usefulness of the effective Lagrangians (L_eff) of QED and QCD within the one-loop approximation. Instead of calculating L_eff via complicated computations with Schwinger's proper-time technique or Feynman graphs, we prefer to employ the energy-momentum tensor and the leading-log model. The advantage is that we do not have to demand the external electromagnetic or color field to be constant. There are also some critical remarks added which cast doubt on the use of LQCD with covariant constant fields in explaining the nature of the QCD vacuum.
In this work, we show how the knowledge of the first few terms of the Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian's weak-field expansion in a magnetic field background is enough to reconstruct the pair-production rate in a strong electric field background. To this end, we study its associated truncated Borel sum using Padé approximants, as advocated in a recent work by Costin and Dunne, J. Phys. A52, 445205 (2019).
Using superfield Dyson-Schwinger equations, we compute the infrared dynamics of the semi-amputated full vertex, corresponding to the effective running gauge coupling, in N-flavour {\mathcal N}=1 supersymmetric QED(3). It is shown that the presence of a supersymmetry-preserving mass for the matter multiplet stabilizes the infrared gauge coupling against oscillations present in the massless case, and we therefore infer that the massive vacuum is thus selected at the level of the (quantum) effective action. We further demonstrate that such a mass can indeed be generated dynamically in a self-cons…
