Intermittency and the Schwinger tunneling mechanism

The creation of qanti q pairs in an external field by tunneling (Schwinger mechanism) is applied in the context of a color tube model to e+e- annihilation. The model incorporates the strong fluctuations of the field implied by the charge shielding due to created pairs. Random cascading phenomena and various interactions among the pairs are observed in a Monte Carlo simulation. They give rise to a clear intermittency signal, compatible with recent experimental analyses. (orig.)