Phase transition of a fermionic system in a gauge theory

The nature of possible transitions in the heat capacity of a fermionic system in a spontaneously broken gauge theory is studied. It is shown that the heat capacity shows a first-order discontinuous behavior at the critical temperature as the symmetry restoration shows a smooth or discontinuous transition near the critical value. The effects of quantum fluctuations leading to temperature dependence in the masses of scalar and vector mesons on the fermionic heat capacity are also considered. Finally, the consequences of the inclusion of nonvanishing chemical potential in the system are briefly discussed.