Dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in QED₃ at finite density and impurity potential

We study the effects of finite chemical potential and impurity scattering on dynamical fermion mass generation in (2+1)-dimensional quantum electrodynamics. In any realistic systems, these effects usually can not be neglected. The longitudinal component of gauge field develops a finite static length produced by chemical potential and impurity scattering, while the transverse component remains long-ranged because of the gauge invariance. Another important consequence of impurity scattering is that the fermions have a finite damping rate, which reduces their lifetime staying in a definite quantum state. By solving the Dyson-Schwinger equation for fermion mass function, it is found that these effects lead to strong suppression of the critical fermion flavor $N_c$ and the dynamical fermion mass in the symmetry broken phase.