Magnetic catalysis in QED_3 at finite temperature: beyond the constant mass approximation

Abstract

We solve the Schwinger-Dyson equations for (2+1)-dimensional QED in the presence of a strong external magnetic field. The calculation is done at finite temperature and the fermionic self energy is not supposed to be momentum-independent, which is the usual simplification in such calculations. The phase diagram in the temperature-magnetic field plane is determined. For intermediate magnetic fields the critical temperature turns out to have a square root dependence on the magnetic field, but for very strong magnetic fields it approaches a B-independent limiting value.

21 pages, 10 figures, published version