Schwinger’s Result On Particle Production From Complex Paths WKB Approximation

This paper presents the derivation of Schwinger’s gauge invariant result of Im Leff upto one loop approximation, for particle production in an uniform electric field through the method of complex trajectory WKB approximation (CWKB). The CWKB proposed by one of the author’s [1] looks upon particle production as due to the motion of a particle in complex space-time plane, thereby requiring tunneling paths both in space and time. Recently [2, 3] there have been some efforts to calculate the reflection and transmission coefficients for particle production in uniform electric field that differ from our expressions for the same. In this paper we clarify the confusion in this regard and establish the correctness of CWKB.