Bubble nucleation as seen by different observers

Abstract

Abstract Pair production in a constant electric field is closely analogous to bubble nucleation in a false vacuum. The classical trajectories of the pairs are Lorentz invariant, but this invariance should be broken by the nucleation process. Garriga et al. used a model detector, consisting of other particles interacting with the pairs, to investigate how pair production is seen by different Lorentzian observers. They found that particles (antiparticles) of the pair are predominantly observed moving in the direction of (opposite to) the electric field and concluded that observers see pairs nucleating preferentially in the detector's rest frame. Here, we apply this approach to the case where two detectors moving relative to one another are used to observe the particle and antiparticle of the same pair. We find that each detector will still observe nucleation to occur in its rest frame, regardless of the motion of the other detector. However, if the relative velocity of the two detectors is sufficiently high, the particle and antiparticle of the pair can be observed moving towards one another with arbitrarily large momenta, contrary to the usual expectation.