Kavli Affiliate: Frank Wilczek
| First 5 Authors: Zi-Hang Zhu, Ying Liu, Gianluca Lagnese, Federica Maria Surace, Wei-Yong Zhang
| Summary:
In the context of quantum electrodynamics, the decay of false vacuum leads to
the production of electron-positron pair, a phenomenon known as the Schwinger
effect. In practical experimental scenarios, producing a pair requires an
extremely strong electric field, thus suppressing the production rate and
making this process very challenging to observe. Here we report an experimental
investigation, in a cold-atom quantum simulator, of the effect of the
background field on pair production from the infinite-mass vacuum in a $1+1$D
$mathrm{U}(1)$ lattice gauge theory. The ability to tune the background field
allows us to study pair production in a large production rate regime.
Furthermore, we find that the energy spectrum of the time-evolved observables
in the zero mass limit displays excitation peaks analogous to bosonic modes in
the Schwinger model. Our work opens the door to quantum-simulation experiments
that can controllably tune the production of pairs and manipulate their
far-from-equilibrium dynamics.
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