Spatially anisotropic four-dimensional gauge interactions, planar fermions, and magnetic catalysis

We consider magnetic catalysis in a field-theoretic system of (3+1)-dimensional Dirac fermions with anisotropic kinetic term. By placing the system in a strong external magnetic field, we examine magnetically-induced fermion mass generation. When the coupling anisotropy is strong, in which case the fermions effectively localize on the plane, we find a significant enhancement of the induced mass gap compared to the isotropic four-dimensional case of quantum electrodynamics. As expected on purely dimensional grounds, the mass and critical temperature scale with the square root of the magnetic field. This phenomenon might be related to recent experimental findings on magnetically-induced gaps at the nodes of d-wave superconducting gaps in high-temperature cuprates.