Universality and the magnetic catalysis of chiral symmetry breaking

G. W. Semenoff, I. A. Shovkovy, L. C. R. Wijewardhana

Published 1999-05-17, updated 1999-09-14Version 2

The hypothesis that the magnetic catalysis of chiral symmetry breaking is due to interactions of massless fermions in their lowest Landau level is examined in the context of chirally symmetric models with short ranged interactions. It is argued that, when the magnetic field is sufficiently large, even an infinitesimal attractive interaction in the appropriate channel will break chiral symmetry.