  In a vicinity of the Fermi surface, graphene layers with bandgaps allow for
closely simulating the vacuum of quantum electrodynamics and, thus, its yet
unverified strong-field phenomenology with accessible field strengths. This
striking feature is exploited to investigate a plausible materialization of
dynamically assisted pair production through the analog production of light but
massive pairs of Dirac quasiparticles. The process is considered in a field
configuration combining a weak high-frequency electric mode and a strong
low-frequency electric field oscillating in time. Its theoretical study is
carried out from a quantum kinetic approach, similar to the one governing the
spontaneous production of pairs in QED. We show that the presence of the weak
assisting mode can strongly increase the number of produced massive Dirac pairs
as compared with a setup driven by the strong field only. The efficiency of the
process is contrasted, moreover, with the case of gapless graphene to highlight
the role played by the quasiparticle mass.
