Non-perturbative electron-positron pair production from vacuum
Florian Hebenstreit
University Graz
16:00 - 17:00 Tuesday 18 May 2010 KFU Graz, Hoersaal 05.12

Quantum electrodynamics (QED) is one of the best-tested theories of physics, especially the perturbative regime (e.g. anomalous magnetic moment). However, there is another regime where an perturbative expansion is not possible. This regime of QED has not fully been explored yet but will hopefully be investigated by high-intensity laser experiments in the near future.

In the first part of my talk I will focus on this non-perturbative regime of QED and try to convince you, that the vacuum is not empty but possesses a rich structure. This non-triviality of the vacuum is responsible for various effect such as vacuum birefringence or the Schwinger effect.

In the second part I present the Schwinger effect, i.e. non-perturbative electron-positron pair production from vauum by electric fields, in more detail and present an analogy to atomic physics.

In the third and fourth part I will focus on two different formalisms how to calculate the number and spectrum of created electron-positron pairs in both spatially homogeneous and spatially inhomogeneous electric fields and show some results I obtained during this PhD project .