Using the gauge-gravity duality, we study the holographic Schwinger effect by performing the potential analysis on the confining D3- and D4-brane background with D-instantons then evaluate the pair production/decay rate by taking account into a fundamental string and a single flavor brane respectively. The two confining backgrounds with D-instantons are obtained from the black D(-1)-D3 and D0-D4 solution with a double Wick rotation. The total potential and pair production/decay rate in the Schwinger effect are calculated numerically by examining the NG action of a fundamental string and the DBI action of a single flavor brane all in the presence of an electric field. In both backgrounds our numerical calculation agrees with the critical electric field evaluated from the DBI action and shows the potential barrier is increased by the presence of the D-instantons, thus the production/decay rate is suppressed by the D-instantons. Our interpretation is that particles in the dual field theory could acquire an effective mass through the Chern-Simons interaction or the theta term due to the presence of D-instantons so that the pair production/decay rate in Schwinger effect is suppressed since it behaves as $e^{-m^{2}}$. Our conclusion is in agreement with the previous results obtained in the deconfined D(-1)-D3 background at zero temperature limit and from the approach of the flavor brane in the D0-D4 background. In this sense, this work may be also remarkable to study the phase transition in Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory and observable effects by the theta angle in QCD.
Using the exact path integral solution of the Schwinger model -- a model where instantons are present -- the Dyson-Schwinger equation is shown to hold by explicit computation. It turns out that the Dyson-Schwinger equation separately holds for every instanton sector. This is due to Theta-invariance of the Schwinger model.
Schwinger pair production is analyzed in a BPST instanton background and in its SL$(2,\mathbb{C})$ complex extension for complex scalar particles. A non-Abelian extension of the worldline instanton method is utilized, wherein Wong's equations in a coherent state picture adopted for SL$(2,\mathbb{C})$ are solved in Euclidean spacetime. While pair production is not predicted in the BPST instanton, a complex extension of the BPST instanton, existing as parallel fields in Minkowski spacetime, is shown to decay via the Schwinger effect.
We consider the Schwinger effect in confining phase by using a holographic setup. The potential analysis is performed for the confining D3-brane and D4-brane backgrounds. We find the critical electric field above which there is no potential barrier and the system becomes unstable catastrophically. An intriguing point is that no Schwinger effect occurs when the electric field is smaller than the confining string tension.
The influence of nonperturbative fields on instantons in quantum chromodynamics is studied. Nonperturbative vacuum is described in terms of nonlocal gauge invariant vacuum averages of gluon field strength. Effective action for instanton is derived in bilocal approximation and it is demonstrated that stochastic background gluon fields are responsible for infra-red (IR) stabilization of instantons. Dependence of characteristic instanton size on gluon condensate and correlation length in nonperturbative vacuum is found. It is shown that instanton size in QCD is of order of 0.25 fm. Comparison of …
This is a review of the recent progress on a holographic description of the Schwinger effect. In 2011, Semenoff and Zarembo proposed a scenario to study the Schwinger effect in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence. The production rate of quark anti-quark pairs was computed in the Coulomb phase. In particular, it provided the critical value of external electric field, above which particles are freely created and the vacuum decays catastrophically. Then the potential analysis in the holographic approach was invented and it enabled us to study the Schwinger effect in the confining phase as w…
The Dyson-Schwinger equations arising from minimizing the vacuum energy density in the Hamiltonian approach to Yang-Mills theory in Coulomb gauge are solved numerically. A new solution is presented which gives rise to a strictly linearly rising static quark potential and whose existence was previously observed in the infrared analysis of the Dyson-Schwinger equations. For the new solution we also present the static quark potential and calculate the running coupling constant from the ghost-gluon vertex.
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.
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.
Using a covariant method to regularize the composite operators, we obtain the bosonized action of the massive Schwinger model on a classical curved background. Using the solution of the bosonic effective action, the energy of two static external charges with finite and large distance separation on a static curved space-time is obtained. The confining behavior of this model is also explicitly discussed.
We study the massive Schwinger model, quantum electrodynamics of massive, Dirac fermions, in 1+1 dimensions; with space compactified to a circle. In the limit that transitions to fermion--anti-fermion pairs can be neglected, we study the full ground state. We focus on the effect of instantons which mediate tunnelling transitions in the induced potential for the dynamical degree of freedom in the gauge field.
A detailed study of the semiclassical expansion of the world line path integral for a charged relativistic particle in a constant external electric field is presented. We show that the Schwinger formula for charged particle pair production is reproduced exactly by the semiclassical expansion around classical instanton solutions when the leading order of fluctuations is taken into account. We prove that all corrections to this leading approximation vanish and that the WKB approximation to the world line path integral is exact.
We consider the quark-antiquark Green's function in the Schwinger Model with instanton contributions taken into account. Thanks to the fact that this function may analytically be found, we draw out singular terms, which arise due to the formation of the bound state in the theory -- the massive Schwinger boson. The principal term has a pole character. The residue in this pole contains contributions from various instanton sectors: $0,\pm 1, \pm 2$. It is shown, that the nonzero ones change the factorizability property. The formula for the residue is compared to the Bethe-Salpeter wave function f…
The Schwinger effect in the presence of instantons is considered in this paper. Using AdS/CFT correspondence in the near horizon limit of the D3+D($-1$)-brane background, we calculate the total potential of a quark-antiquark pair in an external electric field. It is shown that instantons tend to suppress the pair creation effect and increase the critical electric field above which the pairs are produced freely without any suppression. Interestingly, no other critical electric field, common for all confining field theories, is observed here at finite temperature. However, as expected we find su…
Worldline instantons have previously been used to study the probability of Schwinger pair production (both the exponential and pre-exponential parts) and photon-stimulated pair production (the exponential part). Previous studies obtained the pair-production probability on the probability level by using unitarity, i.e. the imaginary part of the effective action for Schwinger pair production or the imaginary part of the polarization tensor for photon-stimulated pair production. The corresponding instantons are closed loops in the complex plane. Here we show how to use instantons on the amplitude…
Fermion propagator of the Schwinger Model is revisited from the point of view of its infrared behavior. The values of anomalous dimensions are found in arbitrary covariant gauge and in all contributing instanton sectors. In the case of a gauge invariant, but path dependent propagator, the exponential dependence, instead of power law one, is established for the special case when the path is a straight line. The leading behavior is almost identical in any sector, differing only by the slowly varying, algebraic prefactors. The other kind of the gauge invariant function, which is the amplitude of …
The known calculations of the fermion condensate $<\barψψ>$ and the correlator $<\barψψ(x) ~\barψψ(0)>$ have been interpreted in terms of {\em localized} instanton solutions minimizing the {\em effective} action. Their size is of order of massive photon Compton wavelength $μ^{-1}$. At high temperature, these instantons become quasistatic and present the 2-dimensional analog of the `walls' found recently in 4-dimensional gauge theories. In spite of the static nature of these solutions, they should not be interpreted as `thermal solitons' living in Minkowski space: the mass of these would-be sol…
In the space-dependent gauge, each mode of the Klein-Gordon equation in a strong electric field takes the form of a time-independent Schrödinger equation with a potential barrier. We propose that the single- and multi-instantons of quantum tunneling may be related with the single- and multi-pair production of bosons and the relative probability for the no-pair production is determined by the total tunneling probability via instantons. In the case of a uniform electric field, the instanton interpretation recovers exactly the well-known pair production rate for bosons and when the Pauli blocking…
Instanton effects may have implications for hadronization of quark-gluon plasma as it cools. Here we study dispersion relations of mesons in a strongly coupled plasma with an instanton background present. It will be shown that at higher energies the instanton effect diminishes and some comments on the limiting velocity of mesons in the plasma. the profile function of mesons on the gravity side is considered also because of its relevance to energy loss of quark in plasma.
We present the results of an explicit numerical computation of a novel instanton in Georgi-Glashow SU(2) theory. The instanton is physically relevant as a mediator of Schwinger production of 't Hooft-Polyakov magnetic monopoles from strong magnetic fields. In weak fields, the pair production rate has previously been computed using the worldline approximation, which breaks down in strong fields due to the effects of finite monopole size. Using lattice field theory we have overcome this limit, including finite monopole size effects to all orders. We demonstrate that a full consideration of the i…
By using AdS/CFT, we study the critical electric field, the Schwinger pair creation rate and the potential phase diagram for the quark and anti quark in four confining supergravity backgrounds which are the Witten QCD, the Maldacena-Nunez, the Klebanov-Tseytlin and the Klebanov-Strassler models. We compare the rate of phase transition in these models and compare it also with the conformal case. We then present the phase diagrams of the entanglement entropy of a strip in these geometries and find the predicted butterfly shape in the diagrams. We find that the phase transitions have higher rate …
Electric fields may decay by quantum tunneling: as calculated by Schwinger, an electron-positron pair may be summoned from the vacuum. In this paper I calculate the pair-production rate at nonzero temperatures. I find that at high temperatures the decay rate is dominated by a new instanton that involves both thermal fluctuation and quantum tunneling; this decay is exponentially faster than the rate in the literature. I also calculate the decay rate when the electric field wraps a compact circle (at zero temperature). The same new instanton also governs this rate: I find that for small circles …
Electric flux may be screened by pair nucleation of heavy charges, a process that has a simple description in terms of a worldline instanton. When flux is wrapped around a small compact spatial dimension, worldline instantons still induce flux dissipation, but the leading process does not create real charged pairs. Instead, dissipation can be described in effective field theory as the production of long-wavelength scalar quanta via parametric resonance. The rate is computed semiclassically, and comments are made on the related problem of pair creation at finite temperature, for which differing…
In the reduction of 4d dualities to 3d there are non-perturbative effects arising from monopoles acting as instantons. This mechanism has been reproduced in string theory by engineering the theories in a IIA brane setup. Nevertheless there are limiting cases of the 4d dualities where the dual theories are actually confined phases of the UV gauge theories. In these cases the monopoles are absent and the mechanism of reduction of the 4d duality has to be modified. In this paper we investigate such modification in the brane setup. The main observation behind our analysis is that in the 4d case th…
We study the effect of higher-derivative terms on holographic Schwinger effect by introducing the Gauss-Bonnet term in the gravity sector. Anti-de Sitter (AdS) soliton background is considered which is dual to confining phase of the boundary field theory. By calculating the potential between the produced pair, we find that larger Gauss-Bonnet factor $λ$ makes the pair lighter. We apply numerical method to calculate the production rate for various cases. The results show that the Gauss-Bonnet term enhances the production rate. The critical behaviors near the two critical values of the electric …
Using holography, we discuss the effects of an external static electric field on the D3/D-instanton theory at zero-temperature, which is a quasi-confining theory, with confined quarks and deconfined gluons. We introduce the quarks to the theory by embedding a probe D7-brane in the gravity side, and turn on an appropriate $U(1)$ gauge field on the flavor brane to describe the electric field. Studying the embedding of the D7-brane for different values of the electric field, instanton density and quark masses, we thoroughly explore the possible phases of the system. We find two critical points in…
We consider universal aspects of a holographic Schwinger effect in general backgrounds with an external homogeneous electric field. The argument is based on the potential analysis developed in our previous work. Under some conditions, there always exists a critical electric field, above which the potential barrier vanishes and the system becomes unstable catastrophically. The critical value agrees with the one obtained from the Dirac-Born-Infeld action. For general confining backgrounds, we show that the Schwinger effect does not occur when the electric field is weaker than the confining strin…
We study $R^2$ corrections to the holographic Schwinger effect in an AdS black hole background and a confining D3-brane background, respectively. The potential analysis for these backgrounds is presented. The critical values for the electric field are obtained. It is shown that for both backgrounds increasing the Gauss-Bonnet parameter the Schwinger effect is enhanced. Moreover, the results provide an estimate of how the Schwinger effect changes with the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio, $η/s$, at strong coupling.
We discuss the confining features of the Schwinger model on the Poincare half plane. We show that despite the fact that the expectation value of the large Wilson loop of massless Schwinger model displays the perimeter behavior, the system can be in confining phase due to the singularity of the metric at horizontal axis. It is also shown that in the quenched Schwinger model, the area dependence of the Wilson loop, in contrast to the flat case, is a not a sign of confinement and the model has a finite energy even for large external charges separation. The presence of dynamical fermions can not m…
This work examines non-perturbative dynamics of a $2$-dimensional QFT by using discrete 't Hooft anomaly, semi-classics with circle compactification and bosonization. We focus on charge-$q$ $N$-flavor Schwinger model, and also Wess-Zumino-Witten model. We first apply the recent developments of discrete 't Hooft anomaly matching to theories on $\mathbb{R}^2$ and its compactification to $\mathbb{R} \times S^1_L$. We then compare the 't Hooft anomaly with dynamics of the models by explicitly constructing eigenstates and calculating physical quantities on the cylinder spacetime with periodic and f…
We give a nonperturbative derivation of the Bethe--Salpeter equation based on the Feynman--Schwinger path integral representation of the one--particle propagator in an external field. We apply the method to the quark--antiquark system in scalar QCD and obtain a confining BS equation assuming the Wilson area law in the straight line approximation. The result is strictly related to the relativistic flux tube model and to the $q \bar{q}$ semirelativistic potential.
QED in 1+1 dimensions possesses two rare and interesting properties - It is both exactly solvable and confining. The combination of these two properties makes it the perfect candidate for a toy model for QCD. We study this model on an interval, where new features of the theory are revealed. We show that on an interval, the model admits charged states, which is unexpected for a confining theory. We show that the charged states are boundary states, and calculate their mass. This result could lead one to expect a similar result in QCD, where single quarks could be isolated near a boundary.
We perform the potential analysis for the holographic Schwinger effect in a rotating deformed AdS black-hole background. We calculate the total potential of a quark-antiquark ($Q\bar{Q}$) pair in an external electric field and evaluate the critical electric field from Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) action. It is shown that the inclusion of angular velocity decreases the potential barrier thus enhancing the Schwinger effect, opposite to the effect of the confining scale. Moreover, by increasing angular velocity decreases the critical electric field above which the pairs are produced freely without any…
We compute one-point function of the glueball loop operator in the maximally confining phase of supersymmetric gauge theory using instanton calculus. In the maximally confining phase the residual symmetry is the diagonal U(1) subgroup and the localization formula implies that the chiral correlation functions are the sum of the contributions from each fixed point labeled by the Young diagram. The summation can be performed exactly by operator formalism of free fermions, which also featured in the equivariant Gromov-Witten theory of P^1. By taking the Laplace transformation of the glueball loop …
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.
At strong-coupling and weak-field limit, the scalar Schwinger effect is studied by the field-theoretical method of worldline instantons for dynamic fields of single-pulse and sinusoidal types. By examining the Wilson loop along the closed instanton path, corrections to the results obtained from weak-coupling approximations are discovered. They show that this part of contribution for production rate becomes dominant as Keldysh parameter increases, it makes the consideration at strong coupling turn out to be indispensable for dynamic fields. Moreover a breaking of weak-field condition similar to…
We study massless QED_2 with N flavors using path integrals. We identify the sector that is generated by the N^2 classically conserved vector currents. One of them (the U(1) current) creates a massive particle, while the others create massless ones. We show that the mass spectrum obeys a Witten-Veneziano type formula. Two theorems on n-point functions clarify the structure of the Hilbert space. Evaluation of the Fredenhagen-Marcu order parameter indicates that a confining force exists only between charges that are integer multiples of +/- Ne, whereas charges that are nonzero mod(N) screen thei…
We solve the Dyson--Schwinger equation for the quark propagator in a model with singular infrared behavior for the gluon propagator. We require that the solutions, easily found in configuration space, be tempered distributions and thus have Fourier transforms. This severely limits the boundary conditions that the solutions may satisify. The sign of the dimensionful parameter that characterizes the model gluon propagator can be either positive or negative. If the sign is negative, we find a unique solution. It is singular at the origin in momentum space, falls off like $1/p^2$ as $p^2\rightarro…
We analyze the asymptotically free massless scalar $ϕ^3$ quantum field theory in 6 dimensions, using resurgent asymptotic analysis to find the trans-series solutions which yield the non-perturbative completion of the divergent perturbative solutions to the Kreimer-Connes Hopf-algebraic Dyson-Schwinger equations for the anomalous dimension. This scalar conformal field theory is asymptotically free and has a real Lipatov instanton. In the Hopf-algebraic approach we find a trans-series having an intricate Borel singularity structure, with three distinct but resonant non-perturbative terms, each r…
The probability of creating an electron-positron pair out of the quantum vacuum by a strong electric field can be enhanced tremendously via an additional weaker time-dependent field. This dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect has already been studied in several works. It has been found that the enhancement mechanism depends on the shape of the weaker field. For example, a Sauter pulse $1/\cosh(ωt)^2$ and a Gaussian profile $\exp(-ω^2 t^2)$ exhibit significant, qualitative differences. However, so far most of the analytical studies were focused on the exponent entering the pair-creation …
Thermal corrections to Schwinger pair production are potentially important in particle physics, nuclear physics and cosmology. However, the lowest-order contribution, arising at one loop, has proved difficult to calculate unambiguously. We show that this thermal correction may be calculated for charged scalars using the worldline formalism, where each term in the decay rate is associated with a worldline instanton. We calculate all finite-temperature worldline instantons, their actions and fluctuations prefactors, thus determining the complete one-loop decay rate at finite temperature. The the…
We present a short and novel derivation of the Schwinger mechanism for particle pair production in $1+1$ dimensional de Sitter and Anti de Sitter spacetimes. We work directly in the flat embedding space and derive the pair production rates in these spacetimes via instanton methods. The derivation is manifestly coordinate independent, and also lends support to the possible deep connection between two conceptually disparate quantum phenomena - Schwinger effect and the Davies-Unruh effect.
The phase-integral and worldline-instanton methods are two widely used methods to calculate Schwinger pair-production densities in electric fields of fixed direction that depend on just one time or space coordinate in the same fixed plane of the electromagnetic field tensor. We show that for charged spinless bosons the leading results of the phase-integral method integrated up through quadratic momenta are equivalent to those of the worldline-instanton method including prefactors. We further apply the phase-integral method to fermion production and time-dependent electric fields parallel to a …
We consider $R^4$ corrections to the holographic Schwinger effect in an AdS black hole background and a confining D3-brane background. The potential between a test particle pair are performed for both backgrounds. We find there is no potential barrier in the critical electric field, which means that the system becomes catastrophically unstable. It is shown that for both backgrounds increasing the inverse 't Hooft coupling parameter $1/λ$ enhances the Schwinger effect. We also discuss the possible relation between the Schwinger effect and the viscosity-entropy ratio $η/s$ in strong coupling.
We compute Schwinger pair production rates at finite temperature, in the presence of homogeneous, concurrent electric and magnetic fields. Expressions are obtained using the semiclassical worldline instanton formalism, to leading order, for spin-$0$ and spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ particles. The derived results are valid for weak coupling and fields. We thereby extend previous seminal results in the literature, to coexistent electric and magnetic fields, and fermions.
Electric fields can spontaneously decay via the Schwinger effect, the nucleation of a charged particle-anti particle pair separated by a critical distance $d$. What happens if the available distance is smaller than $d$? Previous work on this question has produced contradictory results. Here, we study the quantum evolution of electric fields when the field points in a compact direction with circumference $L < d$ using the massive Schwinger model, quantum electrodynamics in one space dimension with massive charged fermions. We uncover a new and previously unknown set of instantons that result in…
We study meson decays using instanton methods in two string models. The first model is the old string model in flat space which combines strings and massive particles and the second is the holographic, Sakai-Sugimoto model. Using the the old string model, we reproduce the QCD formula for the probability of splitting of the QCD flux tube derived by Casher-Neuberger-Nussinov (CNN). In the holographic model we construct a string worldsheet instanton which interpolates between a single and double string configuration, which determines the decay from one to two dual mesonic particles. The resulting…
In the holographic model of QCD, theta dependence sharply changes at the point of confinement deconfinement phase transition. In large N QCD such a change in theta behavior can be related to the breakdown of the instanton expansion at some critical temperature T_c. Associating this temperature with confinement-deconfinement phase transition leads to the description of the latter in terms of dissociation of instantons into the fractionally charged instanton quarks. To elucidate this picture, we introduce the nonvanishing chiral condensate in the deconfining phase and assume a specific lagrangia…
Magnetic monopoles may be produced by the Schwinger effect in the strong magnetic fields of peripheral heavy-ion collisions. We review the form of the electromagnetic fields in such collisions and calculate from first principles the cross section for monopole pair production. Using the worldline instanton method, we work to all orders in the magnetic charge, and hence are not hampered by the breakdown of perturbation theory. Our result depends on the spacetime inhomogeneity through a single dimensionless parameter, the Keldysh parameter, which is independent of collision energy for a given mon…
We perform the potential analysis for the holographic Schwinger effect in a deformed $AdS_5$ model with conformal invariance broken by a background dilaton. We evaluate the static potential by analyzing the classical action of a string attaching the rectangular Wilson loop on a probe D3 brane sitting at an intermediate position in the bulk AdS space. We observe that the inclusion of chemical potential tends to enhance the production rate, reverse to the effect of confining scale. Also, we calculate the critical electric field by Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) action.
We use the method of evaluating the decay rate in terms of the imaginary part of a probe brane action to study the holographic Schwinger effect. In the confining D3-branes case, we find that the Schwinger effect occurs at energy scales higher than the Kaluza-Klein mass, indicating the absence of such effect when the dual gauge field theory can be regarded as an 2+1 dimensional theory. This property is independent of the configuration of the probe brane. In the case of D3-branes with a B field dual to a noncommutative super Yang-Mills theory, we study how the decay rate is affected by the nonco…
Via the worldline instanton method, we study electron-positron pair creation by a strong electric field of the profile $E/\cosh^2(kx)$ superimposed by a weaker pulse $E'/\cosh^2(ωt)$. If the temporal Keldysh parameter $γ_ω=mω/(qE)$ exceeds a threshold value $γ_ω^{\rm crit}$ which depends on the spatial Keldysh parameter $γ_k=mk/(qE)$, we find a drastic enhancement of the pair creation probability -- reporting on what we believe to be the first analytic non-perturbative result for the interplay between temporal and spatial field dependences $E(t,x)$ in the Sauter-Schwinger effect.
The fermion propagator and the 4-fermion Green function in the massless QED2 are explicitly found with topological effects taken into account. The corrections due to instanton sectors k=+1,-1, contributing to the propagator, are shown to be just the homogenous terms admitted by the Dyson-Schwinger equation for S. In the case of the 4-fermion function also sectors k=+2,-2 are included into consideration. The quark condensates are then calculated and are shown to satisfy cluster property. The theta-dependence exhibited by the Green functions corresponds to and may be removed by performing certai…
