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  • Open Access

Chiral properties of (2+1)-flavor QCD in magnetic fields at zero temperature

Heng-Tong Ding and Dan Zhang

  • Key Laboratory of Quark and Lepton Physics (MOE) and Institute of Particle Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 094503 – Published 19 May, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/qpxq-xjqc

Abstract

We present a lattice QCD study of the chiral properties of (2+1)-flavor QCD in background magnetic fields at zero temperature with physical pion masses. Simulations are performed using the highly improved staggered quark action across four different lattice spacings to enable a controlled continuum extrapolation. We compute the renormalized chiral condensates together with pseudoscalar meson masses and decay constants for pions, kaons, and the fictitious ηss¯0 pseudoscalar as functions of the magnetic-field strength eB up to eB≃1.2  GeV2. The chiral condensates exhibit clear magnetic catalysis, increasing monotonically with the field strength. In the meson sector, neutral pseudoscalar masses decrease steadily with eB, whereas charged pseudoscalar masses display a nonmonotonic response: They rise at small fields, consistent with the lowest-Landau-level expectation, but then saturate and slightly decrease at larger fields, signaling sizable internal-structure effects. At the same time, neutral pseudoscalar decay constants are strongly enhanced by the magnetic field. To quantify deviations from chiral symmetry relations, we isolate the magnetic-field-induced shift in the Gell-Mann–Oakes–Renner corrections and find it to remain small for the neutral pion but to become sizable for the neutral kaon. To elucidate the origin of the magnetic response, we separately analyze the sea- and valence-quark contributions to both neutral and charged meson masses, finding that valence effects dominate at zero temperature. These results provide new insights into the interplay between QCD chiral symmetry breaking and strong magnetic fields.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 094503– Published 19 May, 2026
  • Received 27 January 2026
  • Accepted 21 April 2026
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