Pair production of open strings — relativistic versus dissipative dynamics Original Research Article

We study the pair production of open strings in constant external electric fields, using a general framework which encodes both relativistic string theory and generic linearly extended systems as well. In the relativistically invariant case we recover previous results, both for pair production and for the effective Born-Infeld action. We then derive a non-relativistic limit — where the propagation velocity along the string is much smaller than the velocity of light — obtaining quantum dissipation. We calculate the pair nucleation rate for this case, which could be relevant for applications.