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QED corrections in unstable vacuum

V. A. Zaytsev, V. A. Yerokhin, C. H. Keitel, and N. S. Oreshkina*

  • *Contact author: natalia.oreshkina@mpi-hd.mpg.de
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 056006 – Published 8 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/895d-7cpx

Abstract

Self-energy and vacuum polarization effects in quantum electrodynamics (QED) are calculated for the supercritical Coulomb field, where Dirac energy levels become embedded in the negative-energy continuum. In this regime, the quantum vacuum becomes unstable, resulting in spontaneous electron-positron pair creation. By calculating the imaginary part of the QED correction, we gain access to an unexplored channel of vacuum instability: radiative spontaneous pair creation. Our results show that this radiative channel is greatly enhanced in the vicinity of the threshold of the supercritical regime, providing evidence for nonperturbative effects with respect to the fine-structure constant α. We therefore conjecture that the total probability of spontaneous pair creation could differ significantly from the predictions of Dirac theory, especially near the supercritical threshold.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 056006– Published 8 September, 2026
  • Received 11 September 2024
  • Accepted 3 August 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.

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