2002/08/07 by J. C. R. Bloch, Jacques Bloch, Bloch, J. C. R. · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-ph/0208074
Ph.D. thesis - University of Durham (1995), LaTeX, 222 pages
arxiv created 2002/08/07 · openalex publication_date 2002/08/07 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We investigate the dynamical generation of fermion mass in quantum electrodynamics (QED). This non-perturbative study is performed using a truncated set of Schwinger-Dyson equations for the fermion and the photon propagator. First, we study dynamical fermion mass generation in quenched QED with the Curtis-Pennington vertex, which satisfies the Ward-Takahashi identity and ensures the multiplicative renormalizability of the fermion propagator. We apply bifurcation analysis to determine the critical point for a general covariant gauge. In the second part of this work we investigate the dynamical generation of fermion mass in full, unquenched QED. We develop a numerical method to solve the system of three coupled non-linear equations for the dynamical fermion mass, the fermion wavefunction renormalization and the photon renormalization function. Much care is taken to ensure the high accuracy of the solutions. We also discuss in detail the proper numerical cancellation of the quadratic divergence in the vacuum polarization integral and the need to use smooth approximations to the solutions.