Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Planar QED in External Magnetic Fields

Abstract

We investigate planar quantum electrodynamics (QED) with two degenerate staggered fermions in an external magnetic field on the lattice. We argue that in external magnetic fields there is dynamical generation of mass for two-dimensional massless Dirac fermions in the weak-coupling region. We extrapolate our lattice results to the quantum Hall effect in graphene.

Comments: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review D