English

QED's in $2{+}1$ dimensions: complex fixed points and dualities

High Energy Physics - Theory 2019-02-28 v2 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

We consider Quantum Electrodynamics with an even number NfN_f of bosonic or fermionic flavors, allowing for interactions respecting at least U(Nf/2)2U(N_f/2)^2 global symmetry. Both in the bosonic and in the fermionic case, we find four interacting fixed points: two with U(Nf/2)2U(N_f/2)^2 symmetry, two with U(Nf)U(N_f) symmetry. Large NfN_f arguments suggest that, lowering NfN_f, all these fixed points merge pairwise and become complex CFT's. In the bosonic QED's the merging happens around Nf911N_f\sim 9{-}11 and does not break the global symmetry. In the fermionic QED's the merging happens around Nf37N_f\sim3{-}7 and breaks U(Nf)U(N_f) to U(Nf/2)2U(N_f/2)^2. When Nf=2N_f=2, we show that all four bosonic fixed points are one-to-one dual to the fermionic fixed points. The merging pattern suggested at large NfN_f is consistent with the four Nf=2N_f=2 boson \lra\lra fermion dualities, providing support to the validity of the scenario.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1812.01544,
  title  = {QED's in $2{+}1$ dimensions: complex fixed points and dualities},
  author = {Sergio Benvenuti and Hrachya Khachatryan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.01544},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

22 pages, many figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T06:31:30.792Z