New QED, the GSI Peaks, and Background Fields

Abstract

There is much evidence that quantum electrodynamics may nave a new, non-perturbative phase, characterized by spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and confinement. We discuss the possibility that this phase may have been seen in the heavy-ion collision experiments at GSI the narrow peaks in the e+e−coincidence data are well explained as composite states of e+e−in this new phase of QED. We concentrate particularly on the question of whether background electromagnetic fields can induce the phase transition, and we present some new, direct, affirmative evidence that field configurations similar to those in the experiments can lead to spontaneous mass generation.