Finite Temperature Behavior of a Relativistic Field Theory with Dynamical Symmetry Breaking

Aug, 1974
37 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.D 11 (1975) 1499
Report number:
  • Print-74-1351 (UC,SAN DIEGO)

Citations per year

197419872000201320250246810
Abstract: (APS)
Recently, Gross and Neveu have studied a two-dimensional field theory of an N-component fermion in the large-N limit. This theory is asymptotically free and has dynamical spontaneous symmetry breaking. In this paper we study certain finite-temperature properties of this theory, especially those related to the survival of the "condensate," or symmetry breaking. Within the mean-field approximation, we find that the symmetry breaking disappears at a finite temperature T0, which is of the same order of magnitude as the physical mass of a fermion. However, the mean-field approximation is not good for any finite N. At any nonzero temperature, however small, the system prefers to be in space-dependent field configurations such that the condensate vanishes. The critical temperature is thus zero.
  • FIELD THEORY
  • SYMMETRY: BROKEN
  • TEMPERATURE
  • FERMION: MASS
  • MASS: FERMION
  • MECHANICS: STATISTICS
  • POTENTIAL