We study the pair production, string breaking, and hadronization of a receding electron-positron pair using the bosonized version of the massive Schwinger model in quantum electrodynamics in 1+1 space-time dimensions. Specifically, we study the dynamics of the electric field in Bjorken coordinates by splitting it into a coherent field and its Gaussian fluctuations. We find that the electric field shows damped oscillations, reflecting pair production. Interestingly, the computation of the asymptotic total particle density per rapidity interval for large masses can be fitted using a Boltzmann factor, where the temperature can be related to the hadronization temperature in QCD. Lastly, we discuss the possibility of an analog quantum simulation of the massive Schwinger model using ultracold atoms, explicitly matching the potential of the Schwinger model to the effective potential for the relative phase of two linearly coupled Bose-Einstein condensates.
The massive Schwinger and the massive sine-Gordon models are proved to be equivalent at finite temperature, using the path-integral framework. The well known relations among the parameters of these models to establish the duality at $T=0$, also remain valid at non zero temperature.
A general formal derivation of the screened massive expansion is provided by Schwinger-Dyson equations. Some known issues of the expansion are clarified and a more general framework is established for a natural extension of the method to two-loop or to amplitudes which are not directly defined by a generating functional. For instance, a one-loop screened expansion is given for the effective gauge-parameter-independent gluon propagator which arises from the pinch-technique.
We investigate the massive Schwinger model in $d=1+1$ dimensions using bosonization and the nonperturbative functional renormalization group. In agreement with previous studies we find that the phase transition, driven by a change of the ratio $m/e$ between the mass and the charge of the fermions, belongs to the two-dimensional Ising universality class. The temperature and vacuum angle dependence of various physical quantities (chiral density, electric field, entropy density) are also determined and agree with results obtained from density matrix renormalization group studies. Screening of fra…
The Sommerfield model with a massive vector field coupled to a massless fermion in 1+1 dimensions is an exactly solvable analog of a Bank-Zaks model. The "physics" of the model comprises a massive boson and an unparticle sector that survives at low energy as a conformal field theory (Thirring model). We analyze generalizations of the Sommerfield model, and the corresponding generalizations of the Schwinger model, with more massless fermions and more vector fields.
We study the particle creation process in the Schwinger model coupled with an external classical source. One can approach the problem by taking advantage that the full quantized model is solvable and equivalent to a (massive) gauge field with a non-local effective action. Alternatively, one can also face the problem following the standard semiclassical route. This means quantizing the massless Dirac field and considering the electromagnetic field as a classical background. We evaluate the energy created by a generic, homogeneous, and time-dependent source. The results exactly match in both app…
Confinement properties of the $1+1$ Schwinger model can bestudied by computing the string tension between two charges. It is finite (vanishing) if the fermions are massive (massless) corresponding to the occurrence of confinement (screening). Motivated by the possibility of experimentally simulate the Schwinger model, we investigate here the robustness of its screened and confined phases. Firstly, we analyze the effect of nearest-neighbour density-density interaction terms, which -- in the absence of the gauge fields -- give rise to the Thirring model. The resulting Schwinger-Thirring model is…
We consider the electromagnetic and gravitational interactions of a massive Rarita-Schwinger field. Stueckelberg analysis of the system, when coupled to electromagnetism in flat space or to gravity, reveals in either case that the effective field theory has a model-independent upper bound on its UV cutoff, which is finite but parametrically larger than the particle's mass. It is the helicity-1/2 mode that becomes strongly coupled at the cutoff scale. If the interactions are inconsistent, the same mode becomes a telltale sign of pathologies. Alternatively, consistent interactions are those that…
Using kinematic renormalization, we derive the Schwinger--Dyson equations for a massive Yukawa model and a Wess--Zumino-like one. Both have linear Schwinger--Dyson equations and a massive renormalized particle. An explicit solution is found in the IR limit of the non-supersymmetric case. Parametric solutions are found in the UV limit of the same model and for the supersymmertic model.
Carbon nanotube with electric fluxes confined in one dimension is studied. We show that a Coulomb interaction \propto |x| leads to a confinement phase with many properties similar to QCD in 4D. Low-energy physics is described by the massive Schwinger model with multi-species fermions labeled by the band and valley indices. We propose two means to detect this state. One is through an optical measurement of the exciton spectrum, which has been calculated via the 't Hooft-Berknoff equation with the light-front field theory. We show that the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner relation is satisfied by a dark e…
We present a covariant quantization of the "massive" spin-${\frac{3}{2}}$ Rarita-Schwinger field in de Sitter (dS) spacetime. The dS group representation theory and its Wigner interpretation combined with the Wightman-G$\mbox{ä}$rding axiomatic and analyticity requirements in the complexified pseudo-Riemanian manifold constitute the basis of the quantization scheme, while the whole procedure is carried out in terms of coordinate-independent dS plane waves. We make explicit the correspondence between unitary irreducible representations (UIRs) of the dS group and the field theory in dS spacetime…
As pointed out by Coleman, physical quantities in the Schwinger model depend on a parameter $θ$ that determines the background electric field. There is a phase transition for $θ= π$ only. We develop a momentum space formalism on a lattice and use it to perform a quantum computation of the critical point of this phase transition on the NISQ device IMB Q Lima. After error mitigation, our results give strong indication of the existence of a critical point at $m/e\simeq 0.32$, where $m$ is the bare fermion mass and $e$ is the coupling strength, in good agreement with the classical numerical result…
We applied a recently published modified Fock-Schwinger (MFS) method to find the exact solution of the propagator equation for a charged vector boson in the presence of a constant magnetic field directly in the momentum space as a sum over Landau levels in arbitrary $ξ$-gauge. In contrast to the standard approaches for finding propagators, MFS method demonstrated several improvements in terms of computational complexity reduction and revealed simple internal structures in intermediate and final expressions, thus allowing to obtain new useful representations of the propagator.
The quasinormal resonance spectrum $\{ω_n(μ,q,M,Q)\}_{n=0}^{n=\infty}$ of charged massive scalar fields in the charged Reissner-Nordström black-hole spacetime is studied {\it analytically} in the large-coupling regime $qQ\gg Mμ$ (here $\{μ, q\}$ are respectively the mass and charge coupling constant of the field, and $\{M,Q\}$ are respectively the mass and electric charge of the black hole). This physical system provides a striking illustration for the validity of the universal relaxation bound $τ\times T \geq \hbar/π$ in black-hole physics (here $τ\equiv 1/\Imω_0$ is the characteristic relaxa…
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…
The Sommerfield model with a massive vector field coupled to a massless fermion in 1+1 dimensions is an exactly solvable analog of a Bank-Zaks model. The `physics' of the model comprises a massive boson and an unparticle sector that survives at low energy as a conformal field theory (Thirring model). I discuss the `Schwinger point' of the Sommerfield model in which the vector boson mass goes to zero. The limit is singular but gauge invariant quantities should be well-defined. I give a number of examples, both (trivially) with local operators and with nonlocal products connected by Wilson lines…
