Based on our recent findings regarding (non-)renormalizability of
non-commutative U*(1) gauge theories [arxiv:0908.0467, arxiv:0908.1743] we
present the construction of a new type of model. By introducing a soft breaking
term in such a way that only the bilinear part of the action is modified, no
interaction between the gauge sector and auxiliary fields occurs. Demanding in
addition that the latter form BRST doublet structures, this leads to a
minimally altered non-commutative U*(1) gauge model featuring an IR damping
behavior. Moreover, the new breaking term is shown to provide the necessary
structure in order to absorb the inevitable quadratic IR divergences appearing
at one-loop level in theories of this kind. In the present paper we compute
Feynman rules, symmetries and results for the vacuum polarization together with
the one-loop renormalization of the gauge boson propagator and the three-point
functions.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures; v2-v4: clarified several points, and minor
correction