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arXiv · 1009.0160

Field-induced decay of quantum vacuum: visualizing pair production in a classical photonic system

Stefano Longhi
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Abstract

The phenomenon of vacuum decay, i.e. electron-positron pair production due to the instability of the quantum electrodynamics vacuum in an external field, is a remarkable prediction of Dirac theory whose experimental observation is still lacking. Here a classic wave optics analogue of vacuum decay, based on light propagation in curved waveguide superlattices, is proposed. Our photonic analogue enables a simple and experimentally-accessible visualization in space of the process of pair production as break up of an initially negative-energy Gaussian wave packet, representing an electron in the Dirac sea, under the influence of an oscillating electric field.

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Stefano Longhi. 2010-09-01. Field-induced decay of quantum vacuum: visualizing pair production in a classical photonic system. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.81.022118

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