Fermion production in gauge theories

Theory Seminars

Speaker: Florian Hebenstreit, University of Heidelberg
Date & Time: November 18, 2013 12:00 - 13:00
Location: UBC, Hennings 318
Local Contact: Fei Zhou
Intended Audience: Graduate

We investigate the production of fermions by strong background fields in Abelian gauge theories (‘Schwinger effect’). We compute the non-equilibrium time evolution of gauge-invariant observables and investigate the decay of the field due to the backreaction mechanism. We discuss distinctive features of the momentum spectrum of created particles (3+1 dimensional QED) and establish a two-stage process in the dynamics of string breaking (1+1 dimensional QED). We indicate how to extend the current study to non-Abelian gauge theories to describe, e.g., quark production from gluon fields at the early stages of relativistic heavy-ion collisions.