  We study the pair production of open strings in constant electric fields,
using a general framework which encodes both relativistic string theory and
generic linearly extended systems as well. In the relativistically invariant
case we recover previous results, both for pair production and for the
effective Born-Infeld action. We then derive a non-relativistic limit - where
the propagation velocity along the string is much smaller than the velocity of
light - obtaining quantum dissipation. We calculate the pair nucleation rate
for this case, which could be relevant for applications.
