2003/11/30 by Alejandro Jenkins · 8 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.69.105007
published as Phys.Rev. D69 (2004) 105007 · revtex4, 11 pages, 5 figures; v2:references added; v3:more references added, typos fixed, some points in sect. IV clarified; v4:even more references added, discussion in sect. V extended; v5:replaced to match published version (minor corrections of form)
openalex publication_date 2004/05/14 · arxiv created 2004/05/17 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We describe how a stable effective theory in which particles of the same fermion number attract may spontaneously break Lorentz invariance by giving a nonzero fermion number density to the vacuum (and therefore dynamically generating a chemical potential term). This mechanism yields a finite vacuum expectation value 〈\ensuremathψ\ensuremathγ^\ensuremathμ\ensuremathψ〉, which we consider in the context of proposed models that require such a breaking of Lorentz invariance in order to yield composite degrees of freedom that act approximately like gauge bosons. We also make general remarks about how the background source provided by 〈\ensuremathψ\ensuremathγ^\ensuremathμ\ensuremathψ〉 could relate to work on signals of Lorentz violation in electrodynamics.