Anomalies and Persistent Order in the Chiral Gross-Neveu model

Abstract: We study the $2d$ chiral Gross-Neveu model at finite temperature $T$ and chemical potential $\mu$. The analysis is performed by relating the theory to a $SU(N)\times U(1)$ Wess-Zumino-Witten model with appropriate levels and global identifications necessary to keep track of the fermion spin structures. At $\mu=0$ we show that a certain $\mathbb{Z}_2$-valued 't Hooft anomaly forbids the system to be trivially gapped when fermions are periodic along the thermal circle for any $N$ and any $T>0$. We also study the two-point function of a certain composite fermion operator which allows us to determine the remnants for $T>0$ of the inhomogeneous chiral phase configuration found at $T=0$ for any $N$ and any $\mu$. The inhomogeneous configuration decays exponentially at large distances for anti-periodic fermions while it persists for $T>0$ and any $\mu$ for periodic fermions, as expected from anomaly considerations. A large $N$ analysis confirms the above findings.