Massless fermions and the instanton dipole liquid in compact QED {sub 3}

• Published in: Annals of physics 2006-08, Vol.321 (8)
• Main Authors: Fosco, C.D., Oxman, L.E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS; DIPOLES; FERMIONS; LIQUIDS; PARITY; PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS; PROPOSALS; QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS; SYMMETRY
• ISSN: 0003-4916; 1096-035X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.aop.2006.01.001

We study the consequences of including parity preserving matter for the effective dual theory corresponding to compact QED {sub 3}; in particular, we focus on the effect of that contribution on the confinement-deconfinement properties of the system. To that end, we compare two recent proposals when massless fermions are included, both based on an effective anomalous dual model, but having global and local Z {sub 2} symmetries, respectively. We present a detailed analysis to show that while for large mass fermions the global Z {sub 2} symmetry is preferred, in the massless fermion case the local Z {sub 2} scenario turns out to be the proper one. We present a detailed discussion about how the inclusion of massless fermions in compact QED {sub 3} leads to deconfinement, and discuss the stability of the deconfined phase by introducing a description based on an instanton dipole liquid picture.