2014/05/01 by Robert Dabrowski, Gerald V. Dunne
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #hep-ph #hep-th #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.90.025021
published as Phys. Rev. D 90, 025021 (2014) · 25 pages; 17 figures
arxiv created 2014/05/01 · openalex publication_date 2014/07/17 · arxiv updated 2014/07/23 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We consider the time evolution of the adiabatic particle number in both time-dependent electric fields and in de Sitter spaces, and define a superadiabatic particle number in which the (divergent) adiabatic expansion is truncated at optimal order. In this superadiabatic basis, the particle number evolves smoothly in time, according to Berry's universal adiabatic smoothing of the Stokes phenomenon. This superadiabatic basis also illustrates clearly the quantum interference effects associated with particle production, in particular, for sequences of time-dependent electric field pulses, and in eternal de Sitter space where there is constructive interference in even dimensions and destructive interference in odd dimensions.