Schwinger Sparks

[Richard D. Saam]

[[Mod. note -- The referenced preprint doesn't actually report
"a first observation" of Schwinger pair production. Rather, it
hypothesizes that Schwinger pair production *might* be the cause of
certain observations.

In describing the interpretation of the observations, the authors also
state explicitly that they are discounting the possibility of strong
relativistic beaming toward us; it's not clear to me why it's appropriate
to discount this possibility.
-- jt]]

A first observation of astrophysical Schwinger Pair Production
http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.06400
as theoretically predicted by Julian Schwinger
J. Schwinger On Gauge Invariance and Vacuum Polarization
Phys. Rev. 82 (1951) 664
in the form of coherent small <1 m^3 objects
in extremely high electro magnetic fields circa a pulsar
as nanosecond PeV pulses
Such a mechanism may also explain
other energy pulses such as fast radio bursts.

Richard D Saam

[Richard D. Saam]

Given that Schwinger pair production *might*

be the cause of certain observations

and the papers generally describe a critical electric field Ec
for Schwinger Pair Production

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0103185v1

Ec = me*c^3/(q*hbar)=1.3x10^18 V/m or
or in terms of cgs
1.3x10^18 V/m /300 = 4.4x10^15 g^(1/2) cm^(-1/2) sec^-1

Is there a possibility that Schwinger Pair Production
would have been operative at Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
wherein temperature may have been 1x10^14 K ?

Defining kinetic energy
Boltzmann*1x10^14 = 0.014 erg (g cm^2/sec^2
and electric field energy (assume dielectric = 1)
Ec^2 / 2 = (4.4x10^15)^2/2 erg/cm^3
then
volume = 2*Boltzmann*1x10^14 / (4.4x10^15)^2 = (1.13x10^-11)^3 cm^3

This volume is a bit larger than an atomic nucleus at ~1x10^-14 cm.
Conceivably, many moles of these volumes could be involved in BBN

The corresponding Schwinger production rate is
~(e*E/hb)^2 / c = 1.3Ex10^56 #/cm^3/sec

This is an extremely high number

Is this type of calculation done in BBN analysis?

Richard D Saam