Non-compact QED3 with Nf⩾2

Abstract Non-compact three-dimensional QED is studied by computer simulations to understand its chiral symmetry breaking features for Nf⩾2, on lattice volumes up to 503 and bare masses as low as m0a=0.0000625. We compute the chiral condensate, scalar and pseudoscalar susceptibilities, and the masses of scalar and pseudoscalar mesons. Finite volume effects and discretisation artifacts are carefully monitored. Our results reveal no decisive signal for chiral symmetry breaking for any Nf⩾2. For Nf=2 the dimensionless condensate can be bounded by β 2 〈 Ψ Ψ〉⩽5×10 −5 . We also present an exploratory study of the fractionally-charged Polyakov line.