Are Crab nanoshots Schwinger sparks

The highest brightness temperature ever observed are from "nanoshots" from the Crab pulsar which we argue could be the signature of bursts of vacuum e± pair production. If so this would be the first time the astronomical Schwinger effect has been observed. These "Schwinger sparks" would be an intermittent but extremely powerful, ~103 L⊙, 10 PeV e± accelerator in the heart of the Crab. These nanosecond duration sparks are generated in a volume less than 1 m3 and the existence of such sparks has implications for the small scale structure of the magnetic field of young pulsars such as the Crab. As a result, this mechanism may also play a role in producing other enigmatic bright short radio transients such as fast radio bursts.