Resurgence in scalar and spinor QED: the Euler–Heisenberg Lagrangian in parallel field backgrounds

Abstract

We present the first systematic resurgent analysis of the Euler–Heisenberg Lagrangian in spinor and scalar quantum electrodynamics for the most general constant background field configuration. In contrast to the extensively studied case of the perpendicular electric and magnetic fields configuration, the parallel fields configuration exhibits unique asymptotic structures, leading to a substantially richer pattern of singularities in the Borel plane. Explicit large-order asymptotic formulas for the weak-field coefficients in both spinor and scalar quantum electrodynamics are derived. These reveal a nontrivial interplay between alternating and non-alternating factorial growth, governed by distinct structures associated with electric and magnetic contributions, and smoothly interpolating between the known perpendicular fields limit. Using Borel–dispersion techniques, we demonstrate that the complete instanton structure underlying Schwinger pair production in parallel fields backgrounds is encoded in the divergent perturbative coefficients. We then construct resurgent approximants using Padé–Borel and Padé–Conformal–Borel resummation schemes adapted to the parallel fields configuration. For the spinor case, conformal improvement results in a significant enhancement in reconstructing both the real and imaginary parts of the effective Lagrangian across a wide range of field ratios. Detailed comparisons with exact special-function representations demonstrate the reliability of reconstructions from a modest number of weak-field coefficients. This work establishes a natural completion of the resurgence programme for constant electromagnetic backgrounds, providing a robust analytic framework for exploring nonperturbative physics and strong-field phenomena in spinor and scalar quantum electrodynamics, from finite perturbative data.