Four-body chiral order parameters in the massless fermion phase

The fermion four-point functions and condensates as the chiral symmetry order parameters are calculated analytically in U(1) gauge theory in the massless phase. It is shown that in leading order of the loop expansion of the effective action, there is a critical coupling for the nonperturbative parity-invariant chirality-changing four-fermion functions; this critical coupling, however, is the same as that for dynamical mass generation. Therefore there is no breaking of chiral symmetry through the condensation of four-fermion functions below the critical coupling for dynamical mass generation for the fermions. copyright 1996 The American Physical Society