Schwinger vacuum pair production in chirped laser pulses

Abstract

The recent developments of high intensity ultrashort laser pulses have raised the hopes of observing Schwinger vacuum pair production which is one of the important nonperturbative phenomena in QED. The quantitative analysis of realistic high intensity laser pulses is vital for understanding the effect of the field parameters on the momentum spectrum of the produced particles. In this study, we analyze chirped laser pulses with a subcycle structure, and investigate the effects of the chirp parameter on the momentum spectrum of the produced particles. The combined effect of the chirp and carrier phase of the laser pulse is also analyzed. These effects are qualitatively explained by investigating the turning-point structure of the potential within the framework of the complex WKB scattering approach to pair production.