Nondecoupling phenomena in QED in a magnetic field and noncommutative QED

The dynamics in QED in a strong constant magnetic field and its connection with the noncommutative QED are studied. It is shown that in the regime with the lowest Landau level (LLL) dominance the U (1) gauge symmetry in the fermion determinant is transformed into the noncommutative U(1)nc gauge symmetry. In this regime, the effective action is intimately connected with that in noncommutative QED and the original U(I) gauge Ward identities are broken (the LLL anomaly). On the other hand, it is shown that although a contribution of each of an infinite number of higher Landau levels is suppressed in an infrared region, their cumulative contribution is not (a nondecoupling phenomenon). This leads to a restoration of the original U(I) gauge symmetry in the infrared dynamics. The physics underlying this phenomenon reflects the important role of a boundary dynamics at spatial infinity in this problem. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.