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Updated: May 27, 2026

Finite Element Modelling of a Cellular Electric Microenvironment
Published on: May 18, 2021
Particle self-bunching in the Schwinger effect in spacetime-dependent electric fields
F Hebenstreit1, R Alkofer, H Gies
1Institut für Physik, Karl-Franzens Universität Graz, A-8010 Graz, Austria.
Abstract:
Nonperturbative electron-positron pair creation (the Schwinger effect) is studied based on the Dirac-Heisenberg-Wigner formalism in 1+1 dimensions. An ab initio calculation of the Schwinger effect in the presence of a simple space- and time-dependent electric field pulse is performed for the first time, allowing for the calculation of the time evolution of observable quantities such as the charge density, the particle number density or the total number of created particles. We predict a new self-bunching effect of charges in phase space due to the spatial and temporal structure of the pulse.
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