Remarks on Schwinger Pair Production by Charged Black Holes

Abstract

We introduce a canonical method for pair production by electromagnetic fields. The canonical method in the space-dependent gauge provides pair-production rate even for inhomogeneous fields. Further, the instanton action including all corrections leads to an accurate formula for the pair-production rate. We discuss various aspects of the canonical method and clarify terminology for pair production. We study pair production by charged black holes first by finding states of the field equation that describe pair production and then by applying the canonical method.

RevTex 19 Pages; Proceedings of the 8th Italian-Korean Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, Pescara, Italy, 2003