Chiral symmetry restoration in monolayer graphene induced by Kekulé distortion

Abstract

We propose a chiral symmetry restoration mechanism in monolayer graphene, in analogy with the strongly coupled gauge theory. The chiral (sublattice) symmetry of graphene, which is spontaneously broken under the effectively strong Coulomb interaction, is restored by introducing the Kekule-patterned lattice distortion externally. Such a phase transition is investigated analytically by the lattice gauge theory model with the original honeycomb lattice structure. We discuss the relation between the chiral phase transition and the spectral gap amplitude.