Non-Abelian Magnetic Field and Curvature Effects on Pair Production

Abstract

We calculate the Schwinger pair production rates in $\mathbb{R}^{3,1}$ as well as in the positively curved space $S^2 \times \mathbb{R}^{1,1}$ for both spin-$0$ and spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ particles under the influence of an external $SU(2) \times U(1)$ gauge field producing an additional uniform non-abelian magnetic field besides the usual uniform abelian electric field. To this end, we determine and subsequently make use of the spectrum of the gauged Laplace and Dirac operators on both the flat and the curved geometries. We find that there are regimes in which the purely non-abelian and the abelian parts of the gauge field strength have either a counterplaying or reinforcing role, whose overall effect may be to enhance or suppress the pair production rates. Positive curvature tends to enhance the latter for spin-$0$ and suppress it for spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ fields, while the details of the couplings to the purely abelian and the non-abelian parts of the magnetic field, which are extracted from the spectrum of the Laplace and Dirac operators on $S^2$, determine the cumulative effect on the pair production rates. These features are elaborated in detail.