Flux unwinding in the lattice Schwinger model

We study the dynamics of the massive Schwinger model on a lattice using exact diagonalization. When periodic boundary conditions are imposed, analytic arguments indicate that a non-zero electric flux in the initial state can "unwind" and decrease to a minimum value equal to minus its initial value, due to the effects of a pair of charges that repeatedly traverse the spatial circle. Our numerical results support the existence of this flux unwinding phenomenon, both for initial states containing a charged pair inserted by hand, and when the charges are produced by Schwinger pair production. We also study boundary conditions where charges are confined to an interval and flux unwinding cannot occur, and the massless limit, where our results agree with the predictions of the bosonized description of the Schwinger model.