Formulation of the Schwinger mechanism in classical statistical field theory

Abstract

In this paper, we show how classical statistical field theory techniques can be used to efficiently perform the numerical evaluation of the non-perturbative Schwinger mechanism of particle production by quantum tunneling. In some approximation, we also consider the back-reaction of the produced particles on the external field, as well as the self-interactions of the produced particles.

Comments: 28 pages, 28 pdf figures; title changed, to appear in Phys.Rev.D