Phase structure of Abelian Chern-Simons gauge theories

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, we obtain that for values $g=n/2\pi$ of the CS coupling with $n=\pm 1,\pm 2$, the theory is equivalent to a gas of closed loops with contact interaction, exhibiting a phase transition in the $3dXY$ universality class. We also employ Monte Carlo simulations to study the noncompact U(1) Abelian Higgs model with a CS term. Finite size scaling of the third moment of the action yields critical exponents $\alpha$ and $\nu$ that vary continuously with the strength of the CS term, and a comparison with available analytical results is made.Comment: RevTex4, 4 pages, 1 figure; v3: improvements and corrections made in the first part of the paper; references added. To be published in Europhysics Letter

Compact U(1) gauge theories in 2+1 dimensions and the physics of low dimensional insulating materials

Compact abelian gauge theories in $d=2+1$ dimensions arise often as an effective field-theoretic description of models of quantum insulators. In this paper we review some recent results about the compact abelian Higgs model in $d=2+1$ in that context.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; based on talk by F.S. Nogueira in the Aachen HEP2003 conferenc

A note on the phase transition in a topologically massive Ginzburg-Landau theory

We consider the phase transition in a model which consists of a Ginzburg-Landau free energy for superconductors including a Chern-Simons term. The mean field theory of Halperin, Lubensky and Ma [Phys. Rev. Lett. 32, 292 (1974)] is applied for this model. It is found that the topological mass, $\theta$, drives the system into different regimes of phase transition. For instance, there is a $\theta_{c}$ such that for $\theta<\theta_{c}$ a fluctuation induced first order phase transition occurs. On the other hand, for $\theta>\theta_{c}$ only the second order phase transition exists. The 1-loop renormalization group analysis gives further insight to this picture. The fixed point structure exhibits tricritical and second order fixed points.Comment: Revised version; uses a more physical parametrization of the renormalization group equations; new references added; one figure added; EuroLatex, 6 page

A non-perturbative approach to the Coleman- Weinberg mechanism in massless scalar QED

We rederive non-perturbatively the Coleman-Weinberg expression for the effective potential for massless scalar QED. Our result is not restricted to small values of the coupling constants. This shows that the Coleman- Weinberg result can be established beyond the range of validity of perturbation theory. Also, we derive it in a manifestly renormalization group invariant way. It is shown that with the derivation given no Landau ghost singularity arises. The finite temperature case is discussed. Pacs number: 11.10.Ef,11.10.Gh

Quantum critical scaling behavior of deconfined spinons

We perform a renormalization group analysis of some important effective field theoretic models for deconfined spinons. We show that deconfined spinons are critical for an isotropic SU(N) Heisenberg antiferromagnet, if $N$ is large enough. We argue that nonperturbatively this result should persist down to N=2 and provide further evidence for the so called deconfined quantum criticality scenario. Deconfined spinons are also shown to be critical for the case describing a transition between quantum spin nematic and dimerized phases. On the other hand, the deconfined quantum criticality scenario is shown to fail for a class of easy-plane models. For the cases where deconfined quantum criticality occurs, we calculate the critical exponent $\eta$ for the decay of the two-spin correlation function to first-order in $\epsilon=4-d$. We also note the scaling relation $\eta=d+2(1-\phi/\nu)$ connecting the exponent $\eta$ for the decay to the correlation length exponent $\nu$ and the crossover exponent $\phi$.Comment: 4.1 pages, no figures, references added; Version accepted for publication in PRB (RC