Vacuum polarization is not a precursor for permanent pair creation
Vacuum polarization is not a precursor for permanent pair creation
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DOI：
10.1088/1361-6455/ac09c4
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发表时间：
2021-06
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Chi Gong;Q. Su;R. Grobe
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Chi Gong;Q. Su;R. Grobe
外部电荷分布Q对狄拉克真空态的影响已经被广泛研究。对于小的Q值，它可以引起以虚电子和正电子的位移为特征的极化。如果Q进一步增加，则预言会出现真实的永久电子-正电子对。这些众所周知的发现可能表明，这两种现象只是同一动态真空过程的弱场和强场极限。然而，直接比较充电电容器配置的这些“极限”表明，这种观点是不正确的。导致真空感应极化电荷形成的物理机制与引发电子-正电子对永久产生的物理机制完全不同。事实上，计算量子场论证明，这两种现象可以相互独立地发生;没有任何显着极化的真空衰减是可能的，反之亦然。这一发现也使我们能够分解的总电荷密度在一个给定的位置到各自的贡献，从永久和极化电荷。
The effect of an external charge distribution Q on the Dirac vacuum state has been widely studied. For a small magnitude of Q, it can induce a polarization characterized by the displacement of virtual electrons and positrons. If Q is further increased, the occurrence of real and permanent electron–positron pairs is predicted. These well-known findings might suggest that these two phenomena are just the weak- and strong-field limits of the same dynamical vacuum process. However, a direct comparison of these ‘limits’ for a charged capacitor configuration shows that this view is incorrect. The physical mechanisms that lead to the formation of the vacuum’s induced polarization charges are entirely different from those that trigger the permanent creation of electron–positron pairs. In fact, computational quantum field theory demonstrates that both phenomena can occur independent of each other; a vacuum decay without any significant polarization is possible and vice versa. This finding allows us also to decompose the total charge density at a given location into the respective contributions from the permanent and the polarization charges.