Nonequilibrium transport and statistics of Schwinger pair production in Weyl semimetals

Vajna, Szabolcs and Dóra, Balázs and Moessner, R. (2015) Nonequilibrium transport and statistics of Schwinger pair production in Weyl semimetals. PHYSICAL REVIEW B, 92 (8). ISSN 2469-9950

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Abstract

The non-equilibrium dynamics beyond linear response of Weyl semimetals is studied after a sudden switching on of a DC electric field. The resulting current is a nonmonotonic function of time, with an initial quick increase of polarization current followed by a power-law decay. Particle-hole creation `a la Schwinger dominates for long times when the conduction current takes over the leading role, with the total current increasing again. The conductivity estimated from a dynamical calculation within a Drude picture agrees with the one obtained from Kubo’s formula. The full distribution function of electron-hole pairs changes from Poissonian for short perturbations to a Gaussian in the long perturbation (Landau-Zener) regime. The vacuum persistence probability of high energy physics manifests itself in a finite probability of no pair creation and no induced current at all times.

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