Magnetic catalysis in the presence of scalar fields

The influence of scalar field interactions in the magnetic catalysis phenomenon is studied in a gauge theory with scalar and fermion fields. It is shown that the external magnetic field catalyzes the appearance of a fermion-antifermion condensate along with a non-zero scalar vev, hence generating a fermion dynamical mass and breaking the discrete chiral symmetry of the theory. The model does not require the introduction of a scalar mass term with a wrong sign in the original Lagrangian to generate the scalar vev, nor does it exhibit dimensional transmutation ”a la Coleman–Weinberg.” The scalar vev noticeably enhances the dynamically generated fermion mass. Possible cosmological applications of these results are suggested.