VACUUM-STRUCTURE OF YANG-MILLS-CHERN-SIMONS THEORY IN 3 DIMENSIONS

We consider the addition of the Chern-Simons action to non-Abelian gauge theories at one-loop order.. It is found that the topological mass acquired by the gauge field tends to assist the breaking of the gauge symmetry in the presence of destructively interfering adjoint-class matter fields. When the matter fields are massless, a critical length may be found above which symmetry is broken. When massive matter is also included there is no critical length, but a critical ratio between the Chern-Simons mass and the matter-field mass. © 1990 The American Physical Society.