Nonperturbative study of the fermion propagator in quenched QED in covariant gauges using a renormalizable truncation of the Schwinger- Dyson equation

Mar, 1993
20 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.D 48 (1993) 4933-4939
Report number:
  • DTP-93-20

Citations per year

199320012009201720250246810
Abstract: (APS)
The Schwinger-Dyson equation for the fermion propagator in quenched four-dimensional QED is solved using a nonperturbative ansatz for the fermion-photon vertex that satisfies the Ward-Takahashi identity, ensures the multiplicative renormalizability of the fermion equation, and reproduces low-order perturbation theory in the appropriate limit. The fermion propagator then possesses a chiral-symmetry-breaking phase only when the coupling α is larger than a critical value αc≃0.92. This critical coupling is almost exactly gauge independent as is the dynamically generated mass, in complete contrast to the popular rainbow approximation.
  • quantum electrodynamics
  • approximation: quenching
  • nonperturbative
  • fermion: propagator
  • fermion: mass generation
  • mass generation: fermion
  • Dyson-Schwinger equation
  • Ward-Takahashi identity
  • renormalization
  • symmetry breaking: chiral