Potential Analysis in Holographic Schwinger Effect

Understand

We analyze electrostatic potentials in the holographic Schwinger effect.

• The potential barrier for the pair production is estimated by a static potential consisting of static mass energies, an electric potential from an external electric-field, and the Coulomb potential between a particle and an antiparticle.
• Given that the Coulomb potential is supposed to be evaluated by the minimal surface attaching on the conformal boundary as usual, the critical field, where the potential barrier vanishes, exhibits a deviation of 30% from the one obtained from the Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) action.
• We reconsider this issue by reexamining the Coulomb-potential part, which is evaluated by the classical action of a string solution attaching on a probe D3-brane sitting at an intermediate position in the bulk AdS.