Nonlinear electrodynamics at cylindrical cumulation fronts

Converging cylindrical electromagnetic fields in vacuum have been shown (Zababakhin and Nechaev Sov Phys JETP 6:345, 1958) to exhibit amplitude cumulation. It was found that the amplitude of self-similar waves increases without bounds at finite distances from the axis on the front of the fields reflected from the cylindrical axis. In the present paper, we propose to exploit this cylindrical cumulation process as a possible new path towards the generation of ultra-strong electromagnetic fields where nonlinear quantum electrodynamics (QED) effects come into play. We show that these effects, as described in the long wave-length limit within the framework of the Euler Heisenberg Lagrangian, induce a radius-dependent reduction of the propagation speed of the cumulation front. Furthermore, we compute the e+-e- pair production rate at the cumulation front and show that the total number of pairs that are generated scales as the sixth power of the field amplitude.