DOI 10.1007/s100529900134
The Chern-Simons term induced at high temperature and the quantization of its coefficient
Wan-Yun Zhao
Institute of Theoretical Physics, Academia Sinica,
P.O. Box 2735, Beijing 100080, P.R. China
Received: 7 April 1999 / Published online: 3 November 1999
Abstract
By perturbative calculations of the high-temperature ground-state
axial vector current of fermion fields coupled to gauge fields, an
anomalous Chern-Simons topological mass term is induced in the
three-dimensional effective action.
The anomaly in three dimensions appears just in the ground-state
current rather than in the divergence of ground-state current. In the
Abelian case, the contribution comes only from the vacuum polarization
graph, whereas in the non-Abelian case, contributions come from the
vacuum polarization graph and the two triangle graphs. The relation
between the quantization of the Chern-Simons coefficient and the Dirac
quantization condition of magnetic charge is also obtained. It implies
that in a (2+1)-dimensional QED with the Chern-Simons topological mass
term and a magnetic monopole with magnetic charge g present, the
Chern-Simons coefficient must be also quantized, just as in the
non-Abelian case.
Copyright Springer-Verlag
