Multifaceted Schwinger effect in de Sitter space

Understand

We investigate particle production \`a la Schwinger mechanism in an expanding, flat de Sitter patch as is relevant for the inflationary epoch of our universe.

• Defining states and particle content in curved spacetime is certainly not a unique process.
• There being different prescriptions on how that can be done, we have used the Schr\"odinger formalism to define instantaneous particle content of the state etc.
• This allows us to go past the adiabatic regime to which the effect has been restricted in the previous studies and bring out its multifaceted nature in different settings.