On the effect of time-dependent inhomogeneous magnetic fields on the particle momentum spectrum in electron-positron pair production

Understand

Electron-positron pair production in spatially and temporally inhomogeneous electric and magnetic fields is studied within the Dirac-Heisenberg-Wigner formalism (quantum kinetic theory) through computing the corresponding Wigner functions.

• The focus is on discussing the particle momentum spectrum regarding signatures of Schwinger and multiphoton pair production.
• Special emphasis is put on studying the impact of a strong dynamical magnetic field on the particle distribution functions.
• As the equal-time Wigner approach is formulated in terms of partial integro-differential equations an entire section of the manuscript is dedicated to present numerical solution techniques applicable to Wigner function approaches in general.