Schwinger effect in QCD and nuclear physics

We provide a pedagogical review of the Schwinger effect, i.e., the non-perturbative production of particle and anti-particle pairs from the vacuum by strong fields, as well as related strong-field phenomena. Beginning with an overview of the Schwinger effect in quantum electrodynamics, we discuss its extensions to quantum chromodynamics and its applications in nuclear physics, including high-$Z$ nuclei, string breaking, relativistic heavy-ion collisions, and the chiral anomaly.