Magnetic catalysis of chiral symmetry breaking and the Pauli problem

Abstract

The non-perturbative Schwinger-Dyson equation is used to show that chiral symmetry is dynamically broken in QED at weak gauge couplings when an external uniform magnetic field is present. A complete analysis of this phenomenon may shed light on the Pauli problem, namely, why $\alpha$ = 1/137.

7 pages, Tex; to appear in the Proceedings of the Conference on Quantum Aspects of Beam Physics, held at Monterey, California in January 1998