Confinement in Maxwell-Chern-Simons planar quantum electrodynamics and the 1/N approximation

We study the analytical structure of the fermion propagator in planar quantum electrodynamics coupled to a Chern-Simons term within a four-component spinor formalism. The dynamical generation of parity-preserving and parity-violating fermion mass terms is considered, through the solution of the corresponding Schwinger-Dyson equation for the fermion propagator at leading order of the 1/N approximation in Landau gauge. The theory undergoes a first-order phase transition toward chiral symmetry restoration when the Chern-Simons coefficient theta reaches a critical value which depends upon the number of fermion families considered. Parity-violating masses, however, are generated for arbitrarily large values of the said coefficient. On the confinement scenario, complete charge screening-characteristic of the 1/N approximation-is observed in the entire (N, theta)-plane through the local and global properties of the vector part of the fermion propagator.