Joint cosmology seminar at Tufts:

Tuesday, November 8, 2022, 2:30 pm
574 Boston Ave, Room 310\\
Tufts University
Refreshments at 2:00 outside the building, at the corner of Harvard St. and Boston Ave.

Schwinger pair production and non-abelian electric fields

Tanmay Vachaspati
ASU

Abstract:

An electric field in pure Maxwell theory is stable. However, if there are charged particles in the theory, the electric field decays due to Schwinger pair production. In pure non-Abelian gauge theories, the gauge particles are themselves charged, leading to the question whether a non-Abelian electric field, such as in a confining string, can be stable. I will discuss electric fields due to certain non-Abelian gauge configurations that are protected from Schwinger pair production and may be candidates for confining strings.