  We investigate particle production \`a la Schwinger mechanism in an
expanding, flat de Sitter patch as is relevant for the inflationary epoch of
our universe. Defining states and particle content in curved spacetime is
certainly not a unique process. There being different prescriptions on how that
can be done, we have used the Schr\"odinger formalism to define instantaneous
particle content of the state etc. This allows us to go past the adiabatic
regime to which the effect has been restricted in the previous studies and
bring out its multifaceted nature in different settings. Each of these settings
gives rise to contrasting features and behaviour as per the effect of electric
field and expansion rate on the instantaneous mean particle number. We also
quantify the degree of classicality of the process during its evolution using a
"classicality parameter" constructed out of parameters of the Wigner function
to obtain information about the quantum to classical transition in this case.
