Possible second-order phase transition in strongly coupled unquenched planar four-dimensional QED
- 15 July 1990
- journal article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review D
- Vol. 42 (2), 656-664
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.42.656
Abstract
We study chiral-symmetry breaking in four-dimensional QED with N fermion species using truncated Schwinger-Dyson equations, and taking vacuum-polarization effects into account via a momentum-dependent gauge coupling. These effects transmute the infinite-order phase transition found previously for the case of a fixed gauge coupling into a second-order phase transition. For large N, the phase transition may not exist, as it is determined primarily by the physics at the cutoff. We also carry out a preliminary renormalization-group analysis of the theory near the critical coupling: the results are compatible with the existence of a nontrivial continuum limit for the planar theory at the critical value, with an effectively dimensionless fermion field.Keywords
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