On The Finite Temperature Chern-Simons Coefficient

TL;DR

This paper calculates the exact finite temperature effective action for a 0+1-dimensional Chern-Simons model, clarifying temperature-dependent effects observed in higher-dimensional theories.

Contribution

It provides the first exact finite temperature effective action for a Chern-Simons system, elucidating temperature effects in related higher-dimensional models.

Findings

Exact finite temperature effective action derived

Temperature-dependent coefficients explained

Clarifies perturbative results in higher dimensions

Abstract

We compute the exact finite temperature effective action in a 0+1-dimensional field theory containing a topological Chern-Simons term, which has many features in common with 2+1-dimensional Chern-Simons theories. This exact result explains the origin and meaning of puzzling temperature dependent coefficients found in various naive perturbative computations in the higher dimensional models.