The Effects of Inter-Valley Coupling of Dirac Fermions near Four Dimensions

Abstract

We analyze the criticality of an Ising Gross-Neveu-Yukawa (GNY) theory of $N_ψ$ Dirac fermion valleys with intra- and inter-valley interactions, using a renormalization-group analysis in $4-ε$ space-time dimensions to one-loop order. The conventional GNY fixed point of decoupled valleys is unstable against inter-valley fluctuations which are naturally present if the symmetry breaking is driven by short-ranged interactions. At the new fixed point, the critical exponents differ from the conventional GNY universality. Most importantly, Lorentz invariance is broken due to interference effects resulting from the relative rotation between valley coordinate frames. In the limit of large $N_ψ$ the critical fixed point with finite inter-valley coupling remains stable but Lorentz invariance is asymptotically restored.