Phase structure of Abelian Chern-Simons gauge theories

¹ Department of Physics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology N-7491 Trondheim, Norway
² Institut für Theoretische Physik, Freie Universität Berlin - D-14195 Berlin, Germany

Received: 10 March 2004
Accepted: 23 August 2004

Abstract

We study the effect of a Chern-Simons (CS) term in the phase structure of two different Abelian gauge theories. For the compact Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory, with the CS term properly defined, we obtain that for values of the CS coupling with , , the theory is equivalent to a gas of closed loops with contact interaction, exhibiting a phase transition in the universality class. We also employ Monte Carlo simulations to study the noncompact Abelian Higgs model with a CS term. Finite-size scaling of the third moment of the action yields critical exponents α and ν that vary continuously with the strength of the CS term, and a comparison with available analytical results is made.