Non-Perturbative Quark-Antiquark Production From a Constant Chromo-Electric Field via the Schwinger Mechanism

Abstract

We obtain an exact result for the non-perturbative quark (antiquark) production rate and its p_T distribution from a constant SU(3) chromo-electric field E^a with arbitary color index $a$ by directly evaluating the path integral. Unlike the WKB tunneling result, which depends only on one gauge invariant quantity |E|, the strength of the chromo-electric field, we find that the exact result for the p_T distribution for quark (antiquark) production rate depends on two independent Casimir (gauge) invariants, E^aE^a and [d_{abc}E^aE^bE^c]^2.

Comments: 7 pages latex. To appear in Phys. Rev. D