Oscillatory pair-creation probabilities in time-dependent subcritical forces

We examine the pair-production process from vacuum in a subcritical force field. If this force field is turned on linearly in time, the number of created electron-positron pairs does not increase monotonically but in a rather oscillatory way with a universal frequency related to twice the electron’s rest mass energy. As a consequence of this oscillatory growth pattern, the final number of created pairs could be controlled by an optimized temporal dependence of the pulse shape of the force.