Radiative dynamical mass of planar charged fermion in a constant homogeneous magnetic field

Abstract

The effective Lagrangian and mass operator are calculated for planar charged massive and massless fermions in a constant external homogeneous magnetic field in the one-loop approximation of the 2+1 dimensional quantum electrodynamics (QED$_{2+1}$). We obtain the renormalizable effective Lagrangian and the fermion mass operator for a charged fermion of mass $m$ and then calculate these quantities for the massless case. The radiative corrections to the mass of charged massless fermion when it occupies the lowest Landau level are found for the cases of the pure QED$_{2+1}$ as well as the so-called reduced QED$_{3+1}$ on a 2-brane. The fermion masses were found can be generated dynamically by an external magnetic field in the pure QED$_{2+1}$ if the charged fermion has small bare mass $m_0$ and in the reduced QED$_{3+1}$ on a 2-brane even at $m_0=0$. The dynamical mass seems to be likely to be revealed in monolayer graphene in the presence of constant homogeneous magnetic field (normal to the graphene sample).