Magnetic Monopoles in non-compact QED - is there a Phase Transition?

Abstract

The existence of the monopole condensation transition reported by Kocic et al. in non-compact, quenched QED is tested. No phase transition is found. This shows that divergence of the `monopole susceptibility' introduced by Hands and Wensley is not a reliable indicator of second order phase transitions. In view of these results I discuss claims that the chiral phase transition seen in QED with fermions is a lattice artefact driven by monopole condensation.