Non-Perturbative Dynamics, Pair Condensation, Confinement and Dynamical Masses in Massless QED2+1

TL;DR

This paper investigates non-perturbative phenomena in massless QED in 2+1 dimensions, revealing pair condensation, spontaneous parity breaking, and the emergence of confining dynamical masses for fermions and photons.

Contribution

It introduces a gauge-invariant variational approach to study non-perturbative effects, including pair condensation and dynamical mass generation, in massless QED3+1.

Findings

Spontaneous parity breaking due to vacuum pair condensation

Fermions and photons acquire non-zero dynamical masses

Confinement of fermionic constituents in the theory

Abstract

Quantum electrodynamics in three spacetime dimensions, with one massless fermion species, is studied using a non-perturbative variational approach. Quantization of the theory follows Dirac's Hamiltonian procedure, with a gauge invariant factorization of the physical degrees of freedom. Due to pair condensation in the vacuum state, the symmetry of parity is spontaneously broken. As a consequence, fermionic quasi-particles propagating in the condensate can be identified and are seen to possess a confining dynamical mass, while the propagating physical electromagnetic mode also acquires a non-vanishing dynamical mass. The issues of gauge invariance and confinement of the constituent fermions are carefully discussed.