Phase Diagram of the Two-Flavor Schwinger Model at Zero Temperature.

We examine the phase structure of the two-flavor Schwinger model as a function of the θ angle and the two masses, m_{1} and m_{2}. In particular, we find interesting effects at θ=π: along the SU(2)-invariant line m_{1}=m_{2}=m, in the regime where m is much smaller than the charge g, the theory undergoes logarithmic renormalization group flow of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type. As a result, dimensional transmutation takes place, leading to a nonperturbatively small mass gap ∼e^{-Ag^{2}/m^{2}}. The SU(2)-invariant line lies within a region of the phase diagram where the charge conjugation symmetry is spontaneously broken and whose boundaries we determine numerically. Our numerical results are obtained using the Hamiltonian lattice gauge formulation that includes the mass shift m_{lat}=m-g^{2}a/4 dictated by the discrete chiral symmetry.

Long-Range Critical Exponents near the Short-Range Crossover.

The d-dimensional long-range Ising model, defined by spin-spin interactions decaying with the distance as the power 1/r^{d+s}, admits a second-order phase transition with continuously varying critical exponents. At s=s_{*}, the phase transition crosses over to the usual short-range universality class. The standard field-theoretic description of this family of models is strongly coupled at the crossover. We find a new description, which is instead weakly coupled near the crossover, and use it to compute critical exponents. The existence of two complementary UV descriptions of the same long-range fixed point provides a novel example of infrared duality.