Phases of the Dirac determinant, Abelian Chern-Simons terms and Berry's phases in the field theoretic description of graphene

TL;DR

This paper investigates the behavior of massless Dirac fields in three dimensions under electromagnetic conditions, revealing how phase choices influence Berry's phases and Chern-Simons terms, with implications for graphene's conductivity.

Contribution

It establishes a link between Dirac determinant phases and the emergence of Berry's phases and Chern-Simons terms in a field theoretic model of graphene.

Findings

Behavior of Hall's conductivity in graphene explained

Phase selection affects Berry's phases and Chern-Simons terms

Results connect relativistic field theory with condensed matter phenomena

Abstract

This talk presents a study of massless relativistic Dirac fields in three Euclidean dimensions, at finite temperature and density, in the presence of a uniform electromagnetic background. Apart from explaining the behavior of Hall's conductivity for graphene, our results show a direct relationship between the selection of a phase for the Dirac determinant and the generation (or lack thereof) of Berry's phases and Chern-Simons terms.