Fractional fermion charges induced by axial-vector and vector gauge potentials and parity anomaly in planar graphenelike structures

Abstract

We show that fermion charge fractionalization can take place in a recently proposed chiral gauge model for graphene even in the absence of Kekulé distortion in the graphene honeycomb lattice. In this model, electrons couple in a chiral way to a pseudomagnetic field with a vortex profile in such a way that it can be used to describe the influences of topological defects, such as disclinations, on the electronic states. We also extend the model by adding the coupling of fermions to an external magnetic field and show that the fermion charge can be fractionalized by means of only gauge potentials. It is shown that the chiral fermion charge can also have fractional value. We also relate the fractionalization of the fermion charge to the parity anomaly in an extended quantum electrodynamics, which involves vector and axial-vector gauge fields. © 2014 American Physical Society.