Chiral asymmetry in cold QED plasma in a strong magnetic field

TL;DR

This paper calculates chiral asymmetry in cold QED plasma under strong magnetic fields beyond weak-field limits, revealing small asymmetries in QED but potentially larger effects in dense quark matter.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical approach using Landau-level representation to compute the chiral shift and chemical potential in cold QED plasma beyond weak-field approximation.

Findings

Chiral asymmetry is small in cold QED plasma under strong magnetic fields.

The method accurately quantifies the Fermi surface asymmetry in dense QED matter.

Potentially large chiral asymmetry in dense quark matter is suggested.

Abstract

The interaction induced chiral asymmetry is calculated in cold QED plasma beyond the weak-field approximation. By making use of the recently developed Landau-level representation for the fermion self-energy, the chiral shift and the parity-even chiral chemical potential function are obtained with the help of numerical methods. The results are used to quantify the chiral asymmetry of the Fermi surface in dense QED matter. Because of the weakness of the QED interactions, the value of the asymmetry appears to be rather small even in the strongest magnetic fields and at the highest stellar densities. However, the analogous asymmetry can be substantial in the case of dense quark matter.