Chern-Simons superconductivity at finite temperature

Abstract

A simple gauge theory discussed recently in the literature as a model of high-temperature superconductors is examined. The model contains a Maxwell field and a Chern-Simons field coupled to fermions in (2+1)-dimensional spacetime. This model has been shown to exhibit a kind of Meissner effect at zero temperature, which originates in the 1-loop mixing between the two gauge fields. We use a euclidean effective action formulation to show that the effect persists at finite temperatures. Although a long-range magnetic type interaction arises at non-zero temperatures, in competition with the finite range forces which dominate the zero temperature interaction, the effect varies smoothly with temperature.