Gauge Systems with Finite Chemical Potential in 2+1 Dimensions by Bosonization

TL;DR

This paper introduces a bosonization approach for gauge systems with finite chemical potential in 2+1D, revealing topological effects, analyzing confinement, and exploring phase transitions relevant to condensed matter and QCD systems.

Contribution

It develops a novel bosonization method that explicitly incorporates topological terms and analyzes confinement and phase transitions at finite chemical potential in 2+1D gauge systems.

Findings

Topological terms emerge at low energy with finite chemical potential.

Chiral symmetry breaking is necessary for confinement in 2+1D.

Confinement and deconfinement are distinguished by non-local topologies.

Abstract

We present a bosonization method to study generic low energy behavior of gauge systems with finite chemical potential in 2+1 dimensions. Benefit from the existence of gap (e.g. Gribov gap) in gauge systems at low energy, the fermion fields can be explicitly bosonized by new gauge fields. When chemical potential of the gauge systems is introduced, we find that topological terms (such as Chern-Simons term in 2+1D) as constraints inevitably emerge at low energy. The fermion sign problem at finite chemical potential and its deep connection to the Chern-Simons theories are discussed. The Wilson's criteria of confinement in pure gauge theories is generalized to finite chemical potential case. The chemical potential dependence of physical quantities at strong coupling are explicitly calculated, including the expectation value of the Wilson loop, the confining potential and the confined/deconfined transition temperature. The bosonization puts discussions on chiral symmetry breaking and confined/deconfined transition on an equal footing, so it is suitable for the study of the subtle interplay between them. We find that the chiral symmetry breaking is a necessary (not sufficient) condition for the confinement in 2+1D, and argue that the confined/deconfined phases are not characterized by any local symmetries but distinguished by their non-local topologies. The low energy modes of the strongly coupled gauge systems in a non-symmetry breaking phase is also discussed. The results of the paper can be widely applied to real strongly coupled gauge systems, e.g. high-temperature superconductor and quantum chromodynamical systems in 2+1 dimensions.