In this article we review some of the recent advances regarding the charged
vortex solutions in abelian and nonabelian gauge theories with Chern-Simons
(CS) term in two space dimensions. Since these nontrivial results are
essentially because of the CS term, hence, we first discuss in some detail the
various properties of the CS term in two space dimensions. In particular, it is
pointed out that this parity (P) and time reversal (T) violating but gauge
invariant term when added to the Maxwell Lagrangian gives a massive gauge
quanta and yet the theory is still gauge invariant. Further, the vacuum of such
a theory shows the magneto-electric effect. Besides, we show that the CS term
can also be generated by spontaneous symmetry breaking as well as by radiative
corrections. A detailed discussion about Coleman-Hill theorem is also given
which aserts that the parity-odd piece of the vacuum polarization tensor at
zero momentum transfer is unaffected by two and multi-loop effects. Topological
quantization of the coefficient of the CS term in nonabelian gauge theories is
also elaborated in some detail. One of the dramatic effect of the CS term is
that the vortices of the abelian (as well as nonabelian) Higgs model now
acquire finite quantized charge and angular momentum. The various properties of
these vortices are discussed at length with special emphasis on some of the
recent developments including the discovery of the self-dual charged vortex
solutions.Comment: To be published in the Proceedings of Indian National Science
Academy, Part A-physical Science
