Magnetic Catalysis in Graphene Effective Field Theory

TL;DR

This paper presents the first nonperturbative lattice simulation evidence of magnetic catalysis in graphene, showing spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and dynamical mass generation at zero temperature, explaining quantum Hall phenomena.

Contribution

It provides the first nonperturbative lattice gauge theory demonstration of magnetic catalysis in graphene's effective field theory, confirming theoretical predictions.

Findings

Nonzero chiral condensate at zero temperature

Spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking observed

Dynamical mass generation for Dirac quasiparticles

Abstract

We report on the first observation of magnetic catalysis at zero temperature in a fully nonperturbative simulation of the graphene effective field theory. Using lattice gauge theory, a nonperturbative analysis of the theory of strongly-interacting, massless, (2+1)-dimensional Dirac fermions in the presence of an external magnetic field is performed. We show that in the zero-temperature limit, a nonzero value for the chiral condensate is obtained which signals the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry. This result implies a nonzero value for the dynamical mass of the Dirac quasiparticle. This in turn has been posited to account for the quantum-Hall plateaus that are observed at large magnetic fields.