Dynamical Mass Generation Research Articles

On the photon mass generation in Rarita–Schwinger QED

This work examines the dynamical mass generation for the photon in Rarita–Schwinger QED. We focus our attention on the cases of ω=2,3 dimensional spacetime. In these frameworks, it is well known that in the usual QED, the photon field (dynamically) acquires a gauge invariant mass (the Schwinger and Chern–Simons mass, respectively). We wish to scrutinize this phenomenon in terms of the Rarita–Schwinger fields. The presence of higher-derivative terms is shown as the leading contributions to the 1PI function ⟨AA⟩ at one-loop order. We study the pole structure of the photon’s complete propagator to unveil the main effects of the Rarita–Schwinger fields on the photon’s mass. In addition, we present some remarks about the renormalizability of this model (in different dimensions) due to the presence of higher-derivative corrections at one-loop.

Numerical indication that center vortices drive dynamical mass generation in QCD

The first calculation of the response of the momentum space quark propagator to center vortices in the ground state fields of QCD is presented. Center vortices are identified on 2+1-flavor dynamical gauge fields with mπ≃156 MeV to obtain the vortex-removed and vortex-only quark propagator. Dynamical mass generation is found to vanish upon vortex removal, while the vortex-only field is able to generate dynamical mass. These new signatures strengthen the lattice QCD evidence indicating that center vortices underpin both dynamical chiral symmetry breaking and quark confinement. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Loop correction and resummation of vertex functions for a self interacting scalar field in the de Sitter spacetime

We consider a massless and minimally coupled self interacting quantum scalar field theory in the inflationary de Sitter background of dimension four. The self interaction potential is taken to be either quartic, λϕ4/4!, or quartic plus cubic, λϕ4/4!+βϕ3/3! (λ>0). We compute the four and three point vertex functions up to two loop. The purely local or partly local part of these renormalised loop corrected vertex functions grow unboundedly after sufficient number of de Sitter e-foldings, due to the appearances of secular logarithms. We focus on the purely local part of the vertex functions and attempt a resummation of them in terms of the dynamically generated mass of the scalar field at late times. Such local logarithms have sub-leading powers compared to the non-local leading ones which can be resummed via the stochastic formalism. The variation of these vertex functions are investigated with respect to the tree level couplings numerically. Since neither the secular effect, nor the dynamical generation of field mass is possible in the Minkowski spacetime, the above phenomenon has no flat spacetime analogue. We have also compared our result with the ones that could be found via the recently proposed renormalisation group techniques. All these results suggest that at late times the value of the non-perturbative vertex function should be less than the tree level coupling.

Fermionic fixed-point structure of asymptotically safe QED with a Pauli term

We test the physical viability of a recent proposal for an asymptotically safe modification of quantum electrodynamics (QED), whose ultraviolet physics is dominated by a non-perturbative Pauli spin-field coupling. We focus in particular on its compatibility with the absence of dynamical generation of fermion mass in QED. Studying the renormalization group flow of chiral four-fermion operators and their fixed points, we discover a distinct class of behavior compared to the standard picture of fixed-point annihilation at large gauge couplings and the ensuing formation of chiral condensates. Instead, transcritical bifurcations, where the fixed points merely exchange infrared stability, are observed. Provided that non-chiral operators remain irrelevant, our theory accommodates a universality class of light fermions for Nf>1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$N_{\ extrm{f}}> 1$$\\end{document} irreducible Dirac flavors. On the contrary, in the special case of Nf=1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$N_{\ extrm{f}}= 1$$\\end{document} flavor, this comes only at the expense of introducing one additional relevant parameter.

Gluon mass generation from renormalons and resurgence

We establish a link between the concepts of infrared renormalons, infrared fixed point, and dynamical nonperturbative mass generation of gluons in pure Yang-Mills theories. By utilizing recent results in the resurgent analysis of renormalons through non-linear ordinary differential equations, we develop a new description for the gluon propagator, thereby realizing the Schwinger mechanism. Specifically, this approach leads to a nonperturbative, dynamic mass generation for Yang-Mills gauge bosons in the deep infrared region, a phenomenon closely associated with color confinement. Furthermore, we present arguments about the limit of applicability of the Borel-Ecalle resummation of the renormalons by comparing it with the Kallen-Lehman representation of the gluon propagator.

Dynamic mass generation and topological order in overscreened Kondo lattices

Multichannel Kondo lattice models are examples of strongly correlated electronic systems that exhibit non-Fermi-liquid behavior due to the presence of a continuous channel symmetry. Mean-field analyses have predicted that these systems undergo channel symmetry breaking at low temperature. We use the dynamical large-N technique to study temporal and spatial fluctuations of the multichannel Kondo model on a honeycomb lattice and find that this prediction is not generally true. Rather, we find a (2+1)-dimensional conformally invariant fixed point, governed by critical exponents that are found numerically. When we break time-reversal symmetry by adding a Haldane mass to the conduction electrons, three phases, separated by continuous transitions, are discernible: one characterized by dynamic mass generation and spontaneous breaking of the channel symmetry, one where topological defects restore channel symmetry but preserve the gap, and one with a Kondo-coupled chiral spin liquid. We argue that the last phase is a fractional Chern insulator with anyonic excitations. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Critical Properties of Three-Dimensional Many-Flavor QEDs

We review several variants of three-dimensional quantum electrodynamics (QED3) with Nf fermion (or boson) flavors, including fermionic (or spinorial) QED3, bosonic (or scalar) QED3, N=1 supersymmetric QED and also models of reduced QED (supersymmetric or not). We begin with an introduction to these models and their flow to a stable infra-red fixed point in the large-Nf limit. We then present detailed state-of-the-art computations of the critical exponents of these models within the dimensional regularization (and reduction) scheme(s), at the next-to-leading order in the 1/Nf expansion and in an arbitrary covariant gauge. We finally discuss dynamical (matter) mass generation and the current status of our understanding of the phase structure of these models.

Dynamical Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Quantum Chromo Dynamics: Delicate and Intricate

Dynamical chiral symmetry breaking (DχSB) in quantum chromo dynamics (QCD) for light quarks is an indispensable concept for understanding hadron physics, i.e., the spectrum and the structure of hadrons. In functional approaches to QCD, the respective role of the quark propagator has been evident since the seminal work of Nambu and Jona-Lasinio has been recast in terms of QCD. It not only highlights one of the most important aspects of DχSB, the dynamical generation of constituent quark masses, but also makes plausible that DχSB is a robustly occurring phenomenon in QCD. The latter impression, however, changes when higher n-point functions are taken into account. In particular, the quark–gluon vertex, i.e., the most elementary n-point function describing the full, non-perturbative quark–gluon interaction, plays a dichotomous role: It is subject to DχSB as signalled by its scalar and tensor components but it is also a driver of DχSB due to the infrared enhancement of most of its components. Herein, the relevant self-consistent mechanism is elucidated. It is pointed out that recently obtained results imply that, at least in the covariant gauge, DχSB in QCD is located close to the critical point and is thus a delicate effect. In addition, requiring a precise determination of QCD’s three-point functions, DχSB is established, in particular in view of earlier studies, by an intricate interplay of the self-consistently determined magnitude and momentum dependence of various tensorial components of the gluon–gluon and the quark–gluon interactions.

Influence of gauge boson mass on dynamical mass generation and chiral phase transition in thermal QED3

In this work, we quantitatively explore how a finite gauge boson mass affects dynamical mass generation and the chiral phase transition in thermal QED3. To this end, we numerically solve the Dyson–Schwinger equations by considering the contributions coming from the wave function renormalization and the spatial part of the boson propagator at first and then compute the chiral condensate and some of thermodynamic quantities. It is found that the wave function renormalization and the spatial part of the boson propagator are crucial for the numerical solutions of the dressing functions and the value of critical temperature. The behaviors of the thermodynamic quantities and the chiral condensate as a function of temperature consistently imply that the chiral phase transition is none other than a second order one. That critical temperature decreases with increasing gauge boson mass verifies that the gauge boson mass will weaken the interactions between fermions and so suppress dynamical mass generation.

Small parameters in infrared QCD: The pion decay constant

We continue our investigation of the QCD dynamics in terms of the Curci-Ferrari effective Lagrangian, a deformation of the Faddeev-Popov one in the Landau gauge with a tree-level gluon mass term. In a previous work we have studied the dynamics of chiral symmetry breaking at the level of the quark propagator and, in particular, the dynamical generation of a constituent quark mass. In the present article, we study the associated Goldstone mode, the pion, and we compute the pion decay constant in the chiral limit. Our approach exploits the fact that the coupling (defined in the Taylor scheme) in the pure gauge sector is perturbative, as observed in lattice simulations which, together with a $1/N_c$-expansion, allows for a systematic, controllable approximation scheme in the low energy regime of QCD. At leading order, this leads to the well-known rainbow-ladder resummation. We study the region of parameter space of the model that gives physical values of the pion decay constant. This allows one to constrain the gluon mass parameter as a function of the coupling using a physically measured quantity.

Shear viscosity coefficient of magnetized QCD medium near chiral phase transition

We study the properties of the shear viscosity coefficient of quark matter at finite temperature and chemical potential near chiral phase transition in a strong background magnetic field. A strong magnetic field induces anisotropic features, phase-space Landau-level quantization, and if the magnetic field is sufficiently strong, interferes with prominent QCD phenomena such as dynamical quark mass generation, likely affecting the quark matter transport characteristics. The modified Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model with inverse magnetic catalysis effect by fitting the Lattice QCD (LQCD) results is used to calculate the changes of quasiparticle related thermodynamic quantities, and the shear viscosity of the system medium, which is analyzed under the relaxation time approximation. We quantify the influence of the order of chiral phase transition and the critical endpoint on dissipative phenomena in such a magnetized medium. When the magnetic field exists, the shear viscosity coefficient of the dissipative fluid system can be decomposed into five different components. In strong field limit, we make a detailed study of the dependencies of $\eta_{2}$ and $\eta_{4}$ on temperature and magnetic field for the first order phase transition and critical endpoint transition. respectively. It is found that $\eta_{2}$ and $\eta_{4}$ both decrease with magnetic field and increase with temperature, and the discontinuities of $\eta_{2}$ and $\eta_{4}$ occur at the first order phase transition point.

Electron mass anomalous dimension at [formula omitted] in three-dimensional [formula omitted] supersymmetric QED

We consider massless three-dimensional N=1 supersymmetric quantum electrodynamics (QED) with Nf flavours of electrons. Within the dimensional reduction scheme, we compute the critical exponents corresponding to both the electron and selectron field and (parity-even) mass anomalous dimensions at the next-to-leading order in the 1/Nf expansion and in an arbitrary covariant gauge. The equality of the gauge-invariant mass anomalous dimensions of the electron and the selectron is found to result from a subtle role played by the epsilon-scalars. Our general framework also allows us to compute the critical exponents of pure scalar QED and to recover known results in the case of spinor QED. An application of our results to dynamical (s)electron mass generation is considered. We find evidence that, while dynamical flavor symmetry breaking occurs in spinor QED, both pure scalar QED and supersymmetric QED remain in an interacting conformal phase.

Thermodynamic properties of non-Hermitian Nambu–Jona-Lasinio models

We investigate the impact of non-Hermiticity on the thermodynamic properties of interacting fermions by examining bilinear extensions to the $3+1$ dimensional $SU(2)$-symmetric Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model of quantum chromodynamics at finite temperature and chemical potential. The system is modified through the anti-$PT$-symmetric pseudoscalar bilinear $\bar{\psi}\gamma_5 \psi$ and the $PT$-symmetric pseudovector bilinear $iB_\nu \,\bar{\psi}\gamma_5\gamma^\nu \psi$, introduced with a coupling $g$. Beyond the possibility of dynamical fermion mass generation at finite temperature and chemical potential, our findings establish model-dependent changes in the position of the chiral phase transition and the critical end-point. These are tunable with respect to $g$ in the former case, and both $g$ and $|B|/B_0$ in the latter case, for both lightlike and spacelike fields. Moreover, the behavior of the quark number, entropy, pressure, and energy densities signal a potential fermion or antifermion excess compared to the standard NJL model, due to the pseudoscalar and pseudovector extension respectively. In both cases regions with negative interaction measure $I = \epsilon-3p$ are found. Future indications of such behaviors in strongly interacting fermion systems, for example in the context of neutron star physics, may point toward the presence of non-Hermitian contributions. These trends provide a first indication of curious potential mechanisms for producing non-Hermitian baryon asymmetry. In addition, the formalism described in this study is expected to apply more generally to other Hamiltonians with four-fermion interactions and thus the effects of the non-Hermitian bilinears are likely to be generic.

Numerical study of the twist-3 asymmetry ALT in single-inclusive electron-nucleon and proton-proton collisions

We provide the first rigorous numerical analysis of the longitudinal-transverse double-spin asymmetry ${A}_{LT}$ in electron-nucleon and proton-proton collisions for the case where only a single pion, jet, or photon is detected in the final state. Given recent extractions of certain, previously unknown, nonperturbative functions, we are able to compute contributions from all terms relevant for ${A}_{LT}$ and make realistic predictions for the observable at Jefferson Lab (JLab) 12 GeV, COMPASS, the future Electron-Ion Collider, and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. We also compare our results to a JLab 6 GeV measurement, which are the only data available for this type of reaction. The twist-3 nature of ${A}_{LT}$ makes it a potentially fruitful avenue to probe quark-gluon-quark correlations in hadrons as well as provide insights into dynamical quark mass generation in QCD.

Hartree-Fock approach to dynamical mass generation in the generalized ( 2+1 )-dimensional Thirring model

The (2+1)-dimensional generalized massless Thirring model with 4-component Fermi-fields is investigated by the Hartree-Fock method. The Lagrangian of this model is constructed from two different four-fermion structures. One of them takes into account the vector$\times$vector channel of fermion interaction with coupling constant $G_v$, the other - the scalar$\times$scalar channel with coupling $G_s$. At some relation between bare couplings $G_s$ and $G_v$, the Hartree-Fock equation for self-energy of fermions can be renormalized, and dynamical generation of the Dirac and Haldane fermion masses is possible. As a result, phase portrait of the model consists of two nontrivial phases. In the first one the chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken due to dynamical appearing of the Dirac mass term, while in the second phase a spontaneous breaking of the spatial parity $\mathcal P$ is induced by Haldane mass term. It is shown that in the particular case of pure Thirring model, i.e. at $G_s=0$, the ground state of the system is indeed a mixture of these phases. Moreover, it was found that dynamical generation of fermion masses is possible for any finite number of Fermi-fields.

Mass Generation and Gravity

Despite the success of the Higgs mechanism to account for the generation of masses of the Standard Model (SM) elementary particles, the ultimate nature and origin of “mass” remain open questions in contemporary physics. From a foundational perspective, mass should be fundamentally related to the gravitational interaction and, according to Mach, with the structure of the Universe. In the present letter, a fully dynamical mass generation mechanism induced by higher-order corrections in the GR Lagrangian is discussed. Notably, the vacuum energy plays a key role in this process, which applies to both vector bosons and fermions. We show that, at the classical level, the Higgs mechanism can be though of as a particular case of the present mechanism.

Dynamical mass generation in Minkowski space at QCD scale

We undertake the challenging task to reveal the properties of dressed light-quarks in the space- and time-like regions. For that aim, we solved the Dyson-Schwinger equation (DSE) in Minkowski space for the quark propagator in a QCD inspired model, focusing on the realization of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking (DCSB) in the large coupling regime. The DSE is considered in the quenched approximation within the rainbow-ladder truncation with a massive gluon and a Pauli-Villars term, which is used to tune the infrared (IR) physics of the model. The solution of the DSE in Minkowski space is performed by resorting to the integral representation of the quark self-energy and propagator, which leads to a coupled set of closed self-consistent equations for the spectral densities, taking into account finite on-mass-shell renormalization. The parameters of the model are chosen such that the gluon mass scale is consistent with recent lattice QCD (LQCD) calculations, the Pauli-Villars mass is lowered down to about 1 GeV to concentrate strength in the infrared momentum region, and the coupling constant and renormalized mass are tuned to reproduce LQCD results for the quark mass function in the Landau gauge. Future application to study the pion consistently with DCSB within the Bethe-Salpeter framework with self-energies in Minkowski space is also delineated.

Nematic Quantum Criticality in Dirac Systems.

We investigate nematic quantum phase transitions in two different Dirac fermion models. The models feature twofold and fourfold, respectively, lattice rotational symmetries that are spontaneously broken in the ordered phase. Using negative-sign-free quantum MonteCarlo simulations and an ε-expansion renormalization group analysis, we show that both models exhibit continuous phase transitions. In contrast to generic Gross-Neveu dynamical mass generation, the quantum critical regime is characterized by large velocity anisotropies, with fixed-point values being approached very slowly. Both experimental and numerical investigations will not be representative of the infrared fixed point, but of a quasiuniversal regime where the drift of the exponents tracks the velocity anisotropy.

Bosonization duality in 2+1 dimensions and critical current correlation functions in Chern-Simons U(1)×U(1) Abelian Higgs model

While the phase structure of the $U(1)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}U(1)$-symmetric Higgs theory is still under debate, a version of this theory with an additional Chern-Simons term was recently shown to undergo a second-order phase transition [Vira Shyta et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 045701 (2021)]. This theory is dual to a topological field theory of massless fermions featuring two gauge fields. Here we elaborate on several aspects of this duality, focusing on the critical current correlators and on the nature of the critical point as reflected by the bosonization duality. The current correlators associated with the $U(1)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}U(1)$ symmetry and the topological current are shown to coincide up to a universal prefactor, which we find to be the same for both $U(1)$ and $U(1)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}U(1)$ topological Higgs theories. The established duality offers in addition another way to substantiate the claim about the existence of a critical point in the bosonic Chern-Simons $U(1)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}U(1)$ Higgs model: a Schwinger-Dyson analysis of the fermionic dual model shows that no dynamical mass generation occurs. The same cannot be said for the theory without the Chern-Simons term in the action.

Effects of the pseudo-Chern-Simons action for strongly correlated electrons in a plane

Chiral symmetry breaking comes from the mass dynamically generated through interaction of Dirac fermions for both quantum electrodynamics in $(2+1)\mathrm{D}$ (QED3) and $(3+1)\mathrm{D}$ (QED4). In QED3, the presence of a Chern-Simons (CS) parameter affects the critical structure of the theory, favoring the symmetric phase where the electron remains massless. Here, we calculate the main effects of a pseudo-Chern-Simons (PCS) parameter $\ensuremath{\theta}$ into the dynamical mass generation of pseudo--quantum electrodynamics (PQED). The $\ensuremath{\theta}$ parameter provides a mass scale for PQED at the classical level and appears as the pole of the gauge-field propagator. After calculating the full electron propagator with the Schwinger-Dyson equation in the quenched-rainbow and large-$N$ approximations, we conclude that $\ensuremath{\theta}$ changes the critical parameters related to the fine-structure constant ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}(\ensuremath{\theta})$ and the number of copies of the matter field ${N}_{c}(\ensuremath{\theta})$, favoring the symmetric phase. In the continuum limit ($\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$), nevertheless, the $\ensuremath{\theta}$ parameter does not affect the critical parameters. We also compare our analytical results with numerical findings of the integral equation for the mass function of the electron. In the strong-coupling limit (with a fine-structure constant $\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\gg}1$), the PCS mass vanishes and the system presents the same criticality as QED3.