Quantum statistics effect in Schwinger pair production in short laser pulses

Abstract

We investigate non-perturbative pair production from vacuum (the Schwinger effect) in the focal region of two counter-propagating, ultra-short laser pulses with sub-cycle structure. We use the quantum kinetic formulation to calculate the momentum spectrum of created particles and show the extreme sensitivity to the laser frequency $\omega$, the pulse length $\tau$ and the carrier-envelope absolute phase $\varphi$. We apply this formalism to both fermions and bosons to illustrate the influence of quantum statistics in this type of electric background field.

Comments: 5 pages, 2 figuers. Talk given by F.H. at the Ninth Conference on Quantum Field Theory under the Influence of External Conditions, 21-25 September 2009, Oklahoma, USA