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Effect of gluon condensate on holographic Schwinger effect

Zi-qiang Zhang [email protected] School of Mathematics and Physics, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China    Xiangrong Zhu [email protected] School of Science, Huzhou University, Huzhou 313000, China    De-fu Hou [email protected] Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
Abstract

We perform the potential analysis in holographic Schwinger effect in a deformed anti-de Sitter (AdS) background with backreaction due to the gluon condensate. We determine the potential by analyzing the classical string action attaching on a probe D3-brane sitting at an intermediate position in the bulk AdS space. It is found that the inclusion of the gluon condensate reduces the production rate, reverse to the effect of the temperature. Also, we evaluate the critical electric field by Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) action.

pacs:
11.25.Tq, 11.15.Tk, 11.25-w

I Introduction

It is generally accepted that vacuum in quantum field theory (QFT) is not actually barren. Rather, it contains lots of virtual particles and antiparticles due to quantum fluctuations. For instance, in the vacuum of quantum electrodynamics (QED), virtual electron-position pairs are supposed to be momentarily created and annihilated. Moreover, these virtual particles could be materialized and become real particles in a strong electric-field. This non-perturbative phenomenon is known as the Schwinger effect. The production rate Γ\Gamma (per unit time and volume) has been evaluated by Schwinger for the case of weak-coupling and weak-field in 1951 JS

Γexp(πm2eE),\Gamma\sim exp\Big{(}{\frac{-\pi m^{2}}{eE}}\Big{)}, (1)

where EE, mm and ee are an external electric-field, an electron mass and an elementary electric charge, respectively. Thirty one years later, Affleck-Alvarez-Manton (AAM) generalized it to the case of arbitrary-coupling and weak-field IK

Γexp(πm2eE+e24),\Gamma\sim exp\Big{(}{\frac{-\pi m^{2}}{eE}+\frac{e^{2}}{4}}\Big{)}, (2)

From the above formulas of Γ\Gamma, one finds there is no critical field in the Schwinger case. While in the AAM case, there is a critical field at eEc=(4π/e2)m2137m2eE_{c}=(4\pi/e^{2})m^{2}\simeq 137m^{2}, but it is far beyond the weak-field condition eEm2eE\ll m^{2}. Thus, it seems that one could not get the critical field under the weak-field condition.

Actually, the Schwinger effect is not confined to QED but ubiquitous for QFT coupled to an U(1) gauge field. However, it remains difficult to tackle this issue with the standard method in QFT. A possible way is to use the AdS/CFT correspondence Maldacena:1997re ; Gubser:1998bc ; MadalcenaReview by realizing QFT (or rather confining gauge theories) with appropriate D-brane set-up. In 2011, Semenoff and Zarembo proposed GW that the Schwinger effect could be modeled in the higgsed 𝒩=4\mathcal{N}=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills (SYM) theory. Specifically, a 𝒩=4\mathcal{N}=4 SYM theory system coupled with an U(1) gauge field can be realized by breaking the gauge group from SU(N+1)SU(N+1) to SU(N)×U(1)SU(N)\times U(1) via the Higgs mechanism. In this approach, the production rate and the critical electric field (at large NN and large ’t Hooft coupling λ\lambda) are evaluated as

Γexp[λ2(EcEEEc)2],Ec=2πm2λ,\Gamma\sim exp\Big{[}-\frac{\sqrt{\lambda}}{2}\Big{(}\sqrt{\frac{E_{c}}{E}}-\sqrt{\frac{E}{E_{c}}}\Big{)}^{2}\Big{]},\qquad E_{c}=\frac{2\pi m^{2}}{\sqrt{\lambda}}, (3)

interestingly, the resulting critical field is completely consistent with the DBI result. Subsequently, there are many attempts to address the holographic Schwinger in this direction. For instance, the potential analysis in holographic Schwinger effect has been investigated in various backgrounds YS ; YS1 ; YS2 ; KB ; MG ; ZQ ; LS . The holographic Schwinger effect and negative differential conductivity have been discussed in SCH . The holographic Schwinger effect with constant electric and magnetic fields was considered in SB ; YS3 . For a study of this quantity in de Sitter spacetime, see WF . Moreover, the holographic Schwinger effect has been analyzed from the imaginary part of a probe brane action KHA ; KHA1 ; XW ; KG . For a recent review on this topic, see DK .

The aim of this paper is to study the effect of the gluon condensate on the (holographic) Schwinger effect. The gluon condensate was proposed in mas as a measure for nonperturbative physics in QCD (at zero temperature). Subsequently, it was regarded as an order parameter for (de)confinement and used to explore the nonperturbative natures of quark gluon plasma (QGP) gl0 ; gl1 ; gl2 ; g13 . Moreover, lattice results show that the gluon condensate is non-zero at high temperature, in particular, its value drastically changes near TcT_{c} (the critical temperature of the deconfinement transition) regardless of the number of quark flavors gb . Due to the above reasons, it would be natural and very interesting to study the possible effect that the gluon condensate might cause on various observables or quantities. Recently, there has been such research from holography. For instance, the effect of the gluon condensate on the heavy quark potential was studied in yk and it was shown that the potential becomes deeper as the value of the gluon condensate decreases. Also, the gluon condensate dependence of the jet quenching parameter and drag force was considered in zq and it was found that the inclusion of the gluon condensate increases the energy loss. Not long ago, the authors of YQ analyzed the effect of the gluon condensate on the imaginary potential and found the dropping gluon condensate reduces the absolute value of imaginary potential thus decreasing the thermal width. Motivated by this, in this paper we study the effect of the gluon condensate on the Schwinger effect. More immediately, we want to understand how the gluon condensate affects the production rate. Also, this work could be considered as the generalization of YS to the case with gluon condensation.

The organization of the paper is as follows. In the next section, we introduce the deformed AdS backgrounds with backreaction due to the gluon condensate. In section 3, we perform the potential analysis for the Schwinger effect in these backgrounds and discuss how the gluon condensate modifies the production rate. The conclusions and discussions are given in section 4.

II Setup

The 5-dimensional (5D) gravity action (in Minkowski) with a dilaton coupled is given by sn

I=12κ2d5xg(+12R212MϕMϕ),I=\frac{1}{2\kappa^{2}}\int d^{5}x\sqrt{g}(\mathcal{R}+\frac{12}{R^{2}}-\frac{1}{2}\partial_{M}\phi\partial^{M}\phi), (4)

where κ2\kappa^{2} is the 5D Newtonian constant. \mathcal{R} denotes the Ricci scalar. RR represents the AdS curvature (hereafter we set R=1R=1). ϕ\phi refers to the dilaton, coupled to the gluon operator. By solving the Einstein equation and the dilaton equation of motion, one can obtain two relevant solutions. The first is the dilaton-wall solution, given by ak ; cc

ds2=r21c2r8(dx2dt2)+dr2r2,ds^{2}=r^{2}\sqrt{1-c^{2}r^{-8}}(d\vec{x}^{2}-dt^{2})+\frac{dr^{2}}{r^{2}}, (5)

and the corresponding dilaton profile is

ϕ(r)=32log(1+cr41cr4)+ϕ0,\phi(r)=\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}\log(\frac{1+cr^{-4}}{1-cr^{-4}})+\phi_{0}, (6)

where x=x1,x2,x3\vec{x}=x_{1},x_{2},x_{3} are the boundary coordinates. rr describes the 5D coordinate and the boundary is r=r=\infty. ϕ0\phi_{0} denotes a constant. cc represents the gluon condensation.

Another is the dilaton black hole solution, given by db ; yk1

ds2=r2H(r)dx2r2P(r)dt2+dr2r2,ds^{2}=r^{2}H(r)d\vec{x}^{2}-r^{2}P(r)dt^{2}+\frac{dr^{2}}{r^{2}}, (7)

with

H(r)\displaystyle H(r) =\displaystyle= (1+fr4)(f+a)/2f(1fr4)(fa)/2f,\displaystyle(1+fr^{-4})^{(f+a)/{2f}}(1-fr^{-4})^{(f-a)/{2f}},
P(r)\displaystyle P(r) =\displaystyle= (1+fr4)(f3a)/2f(1fr4)(f+3a)/2f,\displaystyle(1+fr^{-4})^{(f-3a)/{2f}}(1-fr^{-4})^{(f+3a)/{2f}},
f2\displaystyle f^{2} =\displaystyle= a2+c2,\displaystyle a^{2}+c^{2},

and

ϕ(r)=cf32log(1+fr41fr4)+ϕ0.\phi(r)=\frac{c}{f}\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}\log(\frac{1+fr^{-4}}{1-fr^{-4}})+\phi_{0}. (9)

As discussed in yk1 , the solution (7) is well defined only in the range rf<r<r_{f}<r<\infty with rff1/4r_{f}\equiv f^{1/4}, where rfr_{f} could be considered as the IR cut-off. The parameter ff determines the position of the singularity. aa is related to the temperature as a=(πT)4/4a=(\pi T)^{4}/4. Note that for a=0a=0, (7) reduces to the dilaton-wall solution, and for c=0c=0 it becomes the Schwarzschild black hole solution. Moreover, there is a Hawking-Page transition between (5) and (7) at some critical value of aa. Therefore, the dilaton-wall solution is for the confined phase and the dilaton black hole solution is for the deconfined phase. For more details about the two solutions, we refer to yk1 .

III potential analysis in Schwinger effect

In this section we follow the approach in YS to study the effect of the gluon condensate on the Schwinger effect. Since the dilaton-wall background could be derived from the dilaton black hole background by plugging a=0a=0 in (7), we will perform (only) the potential analysis for the latter but discuss the results for both.

III.1 Coulomb potential and static energy

One considers a rectangular Wilson loop on the probe D3-brane located at r=r0r=r_{0} and impose the following ansatz

t=τ,x1=σ,x2=0,x3=0,r=r(σ).t=\tau,\qquad x_{1}=\sigma,\qquad x_{2}=0,\qquad x_{3}=0,\qquad r=r(\sigma). (10)

The Nambu-Goto action is

S=TF𝑑τ𝑑σ=TF𝑑τ𝑑σg,TF=12παS=T_{F}\int d\tau d\sigma\mathcal{L}=T_{F}\int d\tau d\sigma\sqrt{g},\qquad T_{F}=\frac{1}{2\pi\alpha^{\prime}} (11)

where TFT_{F} denotes the string tension. α\alpha^{\prime} is related to λ\lambda by R2α=1α=λ\frac{R^{2}}{\alpha^{\prime}}=\frac{1}{\alpha^{\prime}}=\sqrt{\lambda}. gg denotes the determinant of the induced metric with

gαβ=gμνXμσαXνσβ,g_{\alpha\beta}=g_{\mu\nu}\frac{\partial X^{\mu}}{\partial\sigma^{\alpha}}\frac{\partial X^{\nu}}{\partial\sigma^{\beta}}, (12)

where gμνg_{\mu\nu} and XμX^{\mu} are the metric and target space coordinates, respectively.

Plugging (10) into (7), the Lagrangian reads

=A(r)+B(r)(drdσ)2,\mathcal{L}=\sqrt{A(r)+B(r)(\frac{dr}{d\sigma})^{2}}, (13)

with

A(r)=r4H(r)P(r)eϕ(r),B(r)=P(r)eϕ(r).A(r)=r^{4}H(r)P(r)e^{\phi(r)},\qquad B(r)=P(r)e^{\phi(r)}. (14)

Since \mathcal{L} does not depend on σ\sigma explicitly, the corresponding Hamiltonian is a constant

=(drdσ)(drdσ)=Constant.\mathcal{H}=\mathcal{L}-\frac{\partial\mathcal{L}}{\partial(\frac{dr}{d\sigma})}(\frac{dr}{d\sigma})=Constant. (15)

Imposing the boundary condition at σ=0\sigma=0,

drdσ=0,r=rc(rf<rc<r0),\frac{dr}{d\sigma}=0,\qquad r=r_{c}\qquad(r_{f}<r_{c}<r_{0}), (16)

given that, one has

drdσ=A2(r)A(r)A(rc)A(rc)B(r),\frac{dr}{d\sigma}=\sqrt{\frac{A^{2}(r)-A(r)A(r_{c})}{A(r_{c})B(r)}}, (17)

where A(rc)=A(r)|r=rcA(r_{c})=A(r)|_{r=r_{c}}.

Integrating (17), the inter-distance between the qq¯q\bar{q} (test particles) can be written as

x=2rcr0𝑑rA(rc)B(r)A2(r)A(r)A(rc).x=2\int_{r_{c}}^{r_{0}}dr\sqrt{\frac{A(r_{c})B(r)}{A^{2}(r)-A(r)A(r_{c})}}. (18)

On the other hand, plugging (13) and (17) into (11), the sum of Coulomb potential and static energy of the qq¯q\bar{q} is expressed as

VCP+E=2TFrcr0𝑑rA(r)B(r)A(r)A(rc).V_{CP+E}=2T_{F}\int_{r_{c}}^{r_{0}}dr\sqrt{\frac{A(r)B(r)}{A(r)-A(r_{c})}}. (19)

III.2 critical electric field

Next, we calculate the critical field. The DBI action takes the form

SDBI=TD3d4xdet(Gμν+μν),S_{DBI}=-T_{D3}\int d^{4}x\sqrt{-det(G_{\mu\nu}+\mathcal{F}_{\mu\nu})}, (20)

where

TD3=1gs(2π)3α2,μν=2παFμν,T_{D3}=\frac{1}{g_{s}(2\pi)^{3}\alpha^{\prime^{2}}},\qquad\mathcal{F}_{\mu\nu}=2\pi\alpha^{\prime}F_{\mu\nu}, (21)

with TD3T_{D3} the D3-brane tension.

Applying (7) and assuming the electric field is turned on along the x1x_{1}-direction YS , one has

Gμν+μν=(r2P(r)eϕ(r)/22παE002παEr2H(r)eϕ(r)/20000r2H(r)eϕ(r)/20000r2H(r)eϕ(r)/2),G_{\mu\nu}+\mathcal{F}_{\mu\nu}=\left(\begin{array}[]{cccc}-r^{2}P(r)e^{\phi(r)/2}&2\pi\alpha^{\prime}E&0&0\\ -2\pi\alpha^{\prime}E&r^{2}H(r)e^{\phi(r)/2}&0&0\\ 0&0&r^{2}H(r)e^{\phi(r)/2}&0\\ 0&0&0&r^{2}H(r)e^{\phi(r)/2}\end{array}\right), (22)

which gives

det(Gμν+μν)=r4H2(r)eϕ(r)[(2πα)2E2r4P(r)H(r)eϕ(r)].det(G_{\mu\nu}+\mathcal{F}_{\mu\nu})=r^{4}H^{2}(r)e^{\phi(r)}[(2\pi\alpha^{\prime})^{2}E^{2}-r^{4}P(r)H(r)e^{\phi(r)}]. (23)

Putting (23) into (20) and making the D3-brane located at r=r0r=r_{0}, one obtains

SDBI=TD3r02H(r0)eϕ(r0)/2d4xr04P(r0)H(r0)eϕ(r0)(2πα)2E2,S_{DBI}=-T_{D3}r_{0}^{2}H(r_{0})e^{\phi(r_{0})/2}\int d^{4}x\sqrt{r_{0}^{4}P(r_{0})H(r_{0})e^{\phi(r_{0})}-(2\pi\alpha^{\prime})^{2}E^{2}}, (24)

where P(r0)=P(r)|r=r0P(r_{0})=P(r)|_{r=r_{0}}, etc.

The quantity under the square root of (24) should be non-negative, yielding

r04P(r0)H(r0)eϕ(r0)(2πα)2E20,r_{0}^{4}P(r_{0})H(r_{0})e^{\phi(r_{0})}-(2\pi\alpha^{\prime})^{2}E^{2}\geq 0, (25)

resulting in

E12παr02P(r0)H(r0)eϕ(r0)TFr02P(r0)H(r0)eϕ(r0).E\leq\frac{1}{2\pi\alpha^{\prime}}r_{0}^{2}\sqrt{P(r_{0})H(r_{0})e^{\phi(r_{0})}}\equiv T_{F}r_{0}^{2}\sqrt{P(r_{0})H(r_{0})e^{\phi(r_{0})}}. (26)

At last, one arrives at the critical field

Ec=TFr02P(r0)H(r0)eϕ(r0),E_{c}=T_{F}r_{0}^{2}\sqrt{P(r_{0})H(r_{0})e^{\phi(r_{0})}}, (27)

one can see that EcE_{c} depends on the temperature as well as the gluon condensate.

III.3 total potential

The remaining task is to compute the total potential, which takes the form

Vtot(x)\displaystyle V_{tot}(x) =\displaystyle= VCP+EEx\displaystyle V_{CP+E}-Ex (28)
=\displaystyle= 2TFrcr0𝑑rA(r)B(r)A(r)A(rc)\displaystyle 2T_{F}\int_{r_{c}}^{r_{0}}dr\sqrt{\frac{A(r)B(r)}{A(r)-A(r_{c})}}
\displaystyle- 2αTFr02P(r0)H(r0)eϕ(r0)rcr0𝑑rA(rc)B(r)A2(r)A(r)A(rc).\displaystyle 2\alpha T_{F}r_{0}^{2}\sqrt{P(r_{0})H(r_{0})e^{\phi(r_{0})}}\int_{r_{c}}^{r_{0}}dr\sqrt{\frac{A(r_{c})B(r)}{A^{2}(r)-A(r)A(r_{c})}}.

where αEEc\alpha\equiv\frac{E}{E_{c}}. It seems quite difficult to evaluate the above expression analytically, but it is possible numerically. To ensure stable numerics, it turns out to be more convenient to use the following dimensionless parameters like

yrrc,mrcr0,y\equiv\frac{r}{r_{c}},\qquad m\equiv\frac{r_{c}}{r_{0}},\qquad (29)

given that, (28) becomes

Vtot(x)\displaystyle V_{tot}(x) =\displaystyle= VCP+EEx\displaystyle V_{CP+E}-Ex (30)
=\displaystyle= 2TFmr011/m𝑑yA(y)B(y)A(y)A(yc)\displaystyle 2T_{F}mr_{0}\int_{1}^{1/m}dy\sqrt{\frac{A(y)B(y)}{A(y)-A(y_{c})}}
\displaystyle- 2αTFmr03P(r0)H(r0)eϕ(r0)11/m𝑑yA(yc)B(y)A2(y)A(y)A(yc).\displaystyle 2\alpha T_{F}mr_{0}^{3}\sqrt{P(r_{0})H(r_{0})e^{\phi(r_{0})}}\int_{1}^{1/m}dy\sqrt{\frac{A(y_{c})B(y)}{A^{2}(y)-A(y)A(y_{c})}}.

where

A(y)\displaystyle A(y) =\displaystyle= (mr0y)4H(y)P(y)eϕ(y),A(yc)=(mr0)4H(y0)P(y0)eϕ(y0),\displaystyle(mr_{0}y)^{4}H(y)P(y)e^{\phi(y)},\qquad A(y_{c})=(mr_{0})^{4}H(y_{0})P(y_{0})e^{\phi(y_{0})},
B(y)\displaystyle B(y) =\displaystyle= P(y)eϕ(y),ϕ(y)=cf32log(1+f(mr0y)41f(mr0y)4)+ϕ0,\displaystyle P(y)e^{\phi(y)},\qquad\phi(y)=\frac{c}{f}\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}\log(\frac{1+f(mr_{0}y)^{-4}}{1-f(mr_{0}y)^{-4}})+\phi_{0},
H(y)\displaystyle H(y) =\displaystyle= (1+f(mr0y)4)f+a2f(1f(mr0y)4)fa2f,\displaystyle(1+f(mr_{0}y)^{-4})^{\frac{f+a}{2f}}(1-f(mr_{0}y)^{-4})^{\frac{f-a}{2f}},
P(y)\displaystyle P(y) =\displaystyle= (1+f(mr0y)4)f3a2f(1f(mr0y)4)f+3a2f,\displaystyle(1+f(mr_{0}y)^{-4})^{\frac{f-3a}{2f}}(1-f(mr_{0}y)^{-4})^{\frac{f+3a}{2f}}, (31)

with H(y0)H(r)|r=mr0H(y_{0})\equiv H(r)|_{r=mr_{0}}, P(y0)P(r)|r=mr0P(y_{0})\equiv P(r)|_{r=mr_{0}} and ϕ(mr0)ϕ(r)|r=mr0\phi(mr_{0})\equiv\phi(r)|_{r=mr_{0}}. One can check that by turning off the gluon condensate effect in (30), the results of SYM case YS are recovered (note that the temperature formula in this paper without gluon condensate is rf=πT/2r_{f}=\pi T/\sqrt{2} but that in YS is rh=πTr_{h}=\pi T).

III.4 dilaton-wall result

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Figure 1: Vtot(x)V_{tot}(x) versus xx with different cc for the dilaton-wall background. In both panels from top to bottom α=0.8,0.9,1.0,1.1\alpha=0.8,0.9,1.0,1.1, respectively.
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Figure 2: Left: Vtot(x)V_{tot}(x) versus xx with fixed α=0.8\alpha=0.8 and different cc for the dilaton-wall background. From top to bottom c=0.9,0.5,0.02c=0.9,0.5,0.02 GeV4GeV^{4}, respectively. Right: EcE_{c} versus cc.

Before numerical computation, we determine the values of some parameters. First, we set TF=1T_{F}=1 and choose an appropriate value of r0r_{0}, e.g., r0=3r_{0}=3, similar to YS . Also, we take 0c0.9GeV40\leq c\leq 0.9GeV^{4} and ϕ0=0\phi_{0}=0, as follows from yk ; zq .

We first discuss the results for the dilaton-wall background (zero temperature case). In fig.1, we plot Vtot(x)V_{tot}(x) against xx with different values of cc, where the left panel is for c=0.02GeV4c=0.02GeV^{4} (small gluon condensate) while the right one c=0.9GeV4c=0.9GeV^{4} (large gluon condensate). Other cases with different values of cc have similar picture. From these figures, one can see that there are mainly three situations: When E<EcE<E_{c} (α<1\alpha<1), the potential barrier is present and the Schwinger effect can occur as a tunneling process. As EE increases, the potential barrier decreases gradually and vanishes at E=EcE=E_{c} (α=1\alpha=1). When E>EcE>E_{c} (α>1\alpha>1), the system becomes catastrophically unstable. The above analysis are in agreement with YS .

In order to study how the gluon condensate influences the Schwinger effect, we plot Vtot(x)V_{tot}(x) versus xx with fixed α=0.8\alpha=0.8 for different values of cc in the left panel of fig.2. One can see that as cc increases, the height and width of the potential barrier both increase. As you know, the higher (or the wider) the potential barrier, the harder the produced pair escapes to infinity. Therefore, one concludes that the presence of the gluon condensate increases the potential barrier thus decreasing the Schwinger effect.

Also, one can analyze the effect of the gluon condensate on the critical field. To this end, we plot EcE_{c} versus cc in the right panel of fig.2. One finds that increases cc leads to increasing EcE_{c} thus making the Schwinger effect harder, consistently the previous potential analysis.

III.5 dilaton black hole result

Next, we discuss the results for the dilaton black hole background (finite temperature case). Likewise, the findings are presented in form of plots, i.e, fig.3\simfig.5, where fig.3 shows the general behavior of the potential for various TT and fixed cc (other cases with different values of cc have similar picture). One can see that there are still three cases for the potential, similar to the dilaton-wall case.

In order to see how the gluon condensate modifies the Schwinger effect at non-zero temperature, we plot Vtot(x)V_{tot}(x) versus xx with fixed TT and different values of cc in the left panel of fig.4. One gets similar results: the inclusion of the gluon condensate increases the potential barrier thus decreasing the Schwinger effect. Also, the same conclusion could be obtained from the gluon condensate dependence of EcE_{c} (see the right panel of fig.4): EcE_{c} increases with cc. Interestingly, it was argued LS that the D-instanton density (corresponds to the vacuum expectation value of the gluon condensation) decreases the Schwinger effect as well.

Furthermore, to understand the temperature dependence of the Schwinger effect, we plot Vtot(x)V_{tot}(x) versus xx with different TT (as well as EcE_{c} versus TT) in fig.5. From the left panel, one can see that at fixed cc, increasing TT leads to decreasing the potential barrier, while from the right panel one finds EcE_{c} decreases with TT, which means increasing TT enhances the Schwinger effect. Therefore, the gluon condensate and temperature have opposite effects on the Schwinger effect. The physical significance of the results will be discussed in the next section

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Figure 3: Vtot(x)V_{tot}(x) versus xx with fixed c=0.9GeV4c=0.9GeV^{4} and different TT for the dilaton black hole background. Left: T=170MeVT=170MeV; Right: T=500MeVT=500MeV. In both panels from top to bottom α=0.8,0.9,1.0,1.1\alpha=0.8,0.9,1.0,1.1, respectively.
Refer to caption
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Figure 4: Left: Vtot(x)V_{tot}(x) versus xx with fixed α=0.8\alpha=0.8, T=170MeVT=170MeV and different cc for the dilaton black hole background. From top to bottom c=0.9,0.5,0.02c=0.9,0.5,0.02 GeV4GeV^{4}, respectively. Right: EcE_{c} versus cc.
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Figure 5: Left: Vtot(x)V_{tot}(x) versus xx with fixed α=0.8\alpha=0.8, c=0.9GeV4c=0.9GeV^{4} and different cc for the dilaton black hole background. From top to bottom T=170,300,500T=170,300,500 MeVMeV, respectively. Right: EcE_{c} versus TT.

IV conclusion and discussion

In this paper, we studied the effect of the gluon condensate on the Schwinger effect in dilaton-wall background and dilaton black hole background, respectively. We evaluated the electrostatic potentials by calculating the Nambu-Goto action of a string attaching the rectangular Wilson loop on a probe D3 brane. Also, we determined EcE_{c} from the DBI action and plotted it as a functions of cc for various cases. For both backgrounds, we observed that increasing cc leads to increasing the potential barrier thus reducing the Schwinger effect. One step further, the presence of the gluon condensate reduces the production rate, in agreement with the finding of LS . Also, we found the temperature has opposite effect on the Schwinger effect.

One may wonder how gluon condensate modifies the Schwinger effect in the investigated temperature ranges (in particular associated with experiment)? We would like to make the following comment. It was shown gb that the value of cc drops near the deconfinement transition. And at high temperatures, cc becomes independent of TT and μ\mu (the chemical potential), but when TT is not very high, cc strongly depends on TT and μ\mu zf . Taken together, one may infer that the Schwinger effect (or production rate) increases as cc decreases in the deconfined phase, and almost won’t be modified by cc at high temperature. However, we could not give a concrete conclusion for intermediate temperature or low temperature. To resolve this problem, we need to study the competitive effects of cc, μ\mu, TT (on the Schwinger effect) as well as the relationship between the three. We hope to report our progress in this regard in the near future.

V Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the NSFC under Grant Nos. 11735007, 11705166 and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) (No. CUGL180402). The work of Xiangrong Zhu is supported by Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China No. LY19A050001.

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