Competition between magnetic catalysis effect and chiral rotation effect

Abstract: In this work, we explore the competition between magnetic catalysis effect and chiral rotation effect in a general parallel electromagnetic field within the effective Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. For a given electric field $E$ at zero temperature, the mass gap shows three different features with respect to an increasing magnetic field $B$: increasing monotonically, decreasing after increasing and decreasing monotonically. By making use of strong magnetic field approximation, we illuminate that this is due to the competition between catalysis effect and chiral rotation effect induced both by the magnetic field, and a critical electric field $\sqrt{eE_c}=86.4~{\rm MeV}$ is found beyond which the mass gap will eventually decrease at large $B$. As only large magnetic field is relevant for the derivation, the critical electric field does not depend on the temperature $T$ or chemical potential $\mu$.