Lifting shell structures in the dynamically assisted Schwinger effect in periodic fields

Abstract

The dynamically assisted pair creation (Schwinger effect) is considered for the superposition of two periodic electric fields acting in a finite time interval. We find a strong enhancement by orders of magnitude caused by a weak field with a frequency being a multitude of the strong-field frequency. The strong low-frequency field leads to shell structures which are lifted by the weaker high-frequency field. The resonance type amplification refers to a new, monotonously increasing mode, often hidden in some strong oscillatory transient background, which disappears during the smoothly switching off the background fields, thus leaving a pronounced residual shell structure in phase space.