Magnetic Catalysis of Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Gauge Theories

TL;DR

This paper investigates how strong magnetic fields induce chiral symmetry breaking and fermion mass generation in gauge theories, revealing a nonanalytic dependence on the coupling constant with potential physical applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates the nonperturbative magnetic catalysis effect leading to fermion mass generation in QED, highlighting the nonanalytic behavior of the dynamical mass.

Findings

Fermion mass depends nonanalytically on coupling in strong magnetic fields

Chiral symmetry is broken dynamically due to magnetic catalysis

Potential applications in related physical systems

Abstract

Non-perturbative effect of the formation of a chiral symmetry breaking condensate <\bar\psi\psi> and of a dynamically generated fermion mass in QED in the presence of an external magnetic field is considered. The dynamical mass of a fermion (energy gap in the fermion spectrum) is shown to depend essentially nonanalytically on the renormalized coupling constant \alpha in a strong magnetic field. Possible applications of this effect are discussed.