Anomaly-induced dynamical refringence in strong-field QED

Understand

We investigate the impact of the Adler-Bell-Jackiw anomaly on the nonequilibrium evolution of strong-field quantum electrodynamics (QED) using real-time lattice gauge theory techniques.

• For field strengths exceeding the Schwinger limit for pair production, we encounter a highly absorptive medium with anomaly-induced dynamical refractive properties.
• In contrast to earlier expectations based on equilibrium properties, where net anomalous effects vanish because of the trivial vacuum structure, we find that out-of-equilibrium conditions can have dramatic consequences for the presence of quantum currents with distinctive macroscopic signatures.
• We observe an intriguing tracking behavior, where the system spends longest times near collinear field configurations with maximum anomalous current.