Formulation of the Schwinger mechanism in classical statistical field theory

F. Gelis, N. Tanji

Published 2013-03-19, updated 2013-06-17Version 4

In this paper, we show how classical statistical field theory techniques can be used to efficiently perform the numerical evaluation of the non-perturbative Schwinger mechanism of particle production by quantum tunneling. In some approximation, we also consider the back-reaction of the produced particles on the external field, as well as the self-interactions of the produced particles.