Influence of QED Corrections on the Orientation of Chiral Symmetry Breaking in the NJL Model

We study QED corrections to chiral symmetry breaking in the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model with two flavors of quarks. In this model, the isospin symmetry is broken by the differences between the current quark masses and the electromagnetic charges of the up and down quarks. To leading order in the 1/N expansion, we calculate the effective potential of the model with one-loop QED corrections at finite temperature. Evaluating the effective potential, we study the influence of the isospin symmetry breaking on the orientation of chiral symmetry breaking. The current quark mass plays an essential role in maintaining the orientation of the chiral symmetry breaking. If the average of the up and down quark masses is small enough, we find a phase in which the pion field has non-vanishing expectation value and dynamical CP violation takes place.