Massless Schwinger model with a 4-fermi interaction at topological angle $\theta = \pi$

Abstract

We study the massless Schwinger model with an additional 4-fermi interaction and a topological term. For topological angle $\theta = \pi$ charge conjugation symmetry is implemented in a non-trivial way and we study the possibility of its spontaneous breaking. For the lattice discretization we use staggered fermions and the Villain action for the gauge fields, where the topological term is an integer and charge conjugation at $\theta = \pi$ is an exact symmetry. The complex action problem is overcome by a suitable worldline/worldsheet representation. We find that as a function of the 4-fermi coupling the system shows a critical point separating a weak coupling phase where charge conjugation symmetry is intact from a strong coupling phase with spontaneously broken charge conjugation symmetry.