Phase transition and critical behavior of d=3 chiral fermion models with left/right asymmetry

Understand

We investigate the critical behavior of three-dimensional relativistic fermion models with a U(N_L)_L x U(1)_R chiral symmetry reminiscent of the Higgs-Yukawa sector of the standard model of particle physics.

• We classify all possible four-fermion interaction terms and the corresponding discrete symmetries.
• For sufficiently strong correlations in a scalar parity-conserving channel, the system can undergo a second-order phase transition to a chiral-symmetry broken phase which is a 3d analog of the electroweak phase transition.
• We determine the critical behavior of this phase transition in terms of the critical exponent $\nu$ and the fermion and scalar anomalous dimensions for N_L >= 1.