# On induced 𝐶⁢𝑃⁢𝑇-odd Chern-Simons terms in 3+1 effective action.

\[

## Abstract

This paper was originally designated as Comment to the paper by R. Jackiw and V. Alan Kosteleck$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{y}}`$ . We provide an example of the fermionic system, the superfluid <sup>3</sup>He-A, in which the $`CPT`$-odd Chern-Simons terms in the effective action are unambiguously induced by chiral fermions. In this system the Lorentz and gauge invariances both are violated at high energy, but the behavior of the system beyond the cut-off is known. This allows us to construct the $`CPT`$\- odd action, which combines the conventional 3+1 Chern-Simons term and the mixed axial-gravitational Chern-Simons term discussed in Ref.. The influence of Chern-Simons term on the dynamics of the effective gauge field has been experimentally observed in rotating <sup>3</sup>He-A.

PACS numbers: 11.30.Er, 11.15.-q, 67.57.-z, 98.80.Cq

\]

Recently the problem of the radiatively induced $`CPT`$-odd Chern- Simons term in 3+1 quantum field theory has been addressed in a number of papers . The Chern-Simons (CS) term $`L_{\mathrm{CS}}=\frac{1}{2}k_\mu e^{\mu \alpha \beta \gamma }F_{\alpha \beta }A_\gamma `$ in the 3+1 electromagnetic action, where $`k^\mu `$ is a constant 4-vector, is induced by the $`CPT`$\- and Lorentz- violating axial-vector term $`b^\mu \gamma _\mu \gamma _5`$ in the Dirac Lagrangian for massive fermions. In the limit of small and large $`b`$ compared with mass $`m`$ of Dirac fermions, it was found that

$`k^\mu ={\displaystyle \frac{3}{16\pi ^2}}b^\mu ,bm,`$ (1)   
$`k^\mu ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi ^2}}b^\mu ,bm.`$ (2)   
However it has been concluded that the existence of CS term depends on the choice of regularization procedure – ”a renormalization ambiguity”. This means that the result for $`k_\mu `$ depends on physics beyond the cut-off.

The above $`CPT`$-odd term can result not only from the violation of the $`CPT`$ symmetry in the vacuum. The nonzero density of the chiral fermions violates the $`CPT`$ invariance and thus can also lead to the Chern-Simons term, with $`b^0`$ determined by the chemical potential $`\mu `$ and temperature $`T`$ of the fermionic system .

Here we provide an example of the fermionic system, in which such Chern-Simons term is unambiguously induced by fermions. In this system the Lorentz and gauge invariances both are violated at high energy, but the behavior of the system beyond the cut-off is known. This allows the calculation of CS term in different physical situations. The influence of this CS term on the dynamics of the effective gauge field has been experimentally observed.

This is the superfluid <sup>3</sup>He-A, where in the low-energy corner there are two species of fermionic quasiparticles: left-handed and right-handed Weyl fermions . Quasiparticles interact with the order parameter, the unit $`\widehat{𝐥}`$-vector of the orbital momentum of Cooper pairs, in the same manner as chiral relativistic fermions interact with the vector potential of the $`U(1)`$ gauge field: $`𝐀p_F\widehat{𝐥}`$, where $`p_F`$ is the Fermi momentum. The ”electric charges” – the charges of the left and right quasiparticles with respect to this effective gauge field – are $`e_R=e_L=1`$. The normal component of superfluid <sup>3</sup>He-A consists of the thermal fermions, whose density is determined by $`T`$ and by the velocity $`𝐯_n𝐯_s`$ of the flow of the normal component with respect to the superfluid vacuum. The velocity of the counterflow in the direction of $`\widehat{𝐥}`$ is equivalent to the chemical potentials for left and right fermions in relativistic system:

$$\mu _R=\mu _L=p_F\widehat{𝐥}(𝐯_n𝐯_s).$$
(3)   
As in the relativistic theories, the state of the system of chiral quasiparticles with nonzero counterflow velocity (an analogue of chemical potential) violates Lorentz invariance and $`CPT`$ symmetry and induces the $`CPT`$\- odd Chern-Simons term. This term can be written in general form, which is valid both for the relativistic systems including that found in Ref. and for <sup>3</sup>He-A :

$$\frac{1}{4\pi ^2}\left(\underset{L}{}\mu _Le_L^2\underset{R}{}\mu _Re_R^2\right)𝐀(\stackrel{}{}\times 𝐀).$$
(4)   
Here sums over $`L`$ and $`R`$ mean summation over all the left-handed and right-handed fermionic species respectively; $`e_L`$ and $`e_R`$ are charges of left and right fermions with respect to $`U(1)`$ field (say, hypercharge field in the Standard model).

Translation of Eq.(4) to the <sup>3</sup>He-A language gives

$$\frac{p_F^3}{2\pi ^2}\left(\widehat{𝐥}_0(𝐯_s𝐯_n)\right)\left(\delta \widehat{𝐥}(\stackrel{}{}\times \delta \widehat{𝐥})\right).$$
(5)   
Here $`\widehat{𝐥}_0`$ is the direction of the order parameter $`\widehat{𝐥}`$ in the homogeneous ground state; $`𝐯_n𝐯_s`$ is the uniform counterflow of the fermionic quasiparticles with respect to the superfluid vacuum; and $`\delta \widehat{𝐥}=\widehat{𝐥}\widehat{𝐥}_0`$ is the deviation of the order parameter from its ground state direction.

Since for chiral fermions the chemical potential plays the part of the parameter $`b^0`$ in the fermionic Lagrangian, the connection between $`k^0`$ and $`b^0`$ is $`k^0=b^0/2\pi ^2`$ in <sup>3</sup>He-A. Though it agrees with the result obtained in relativistic system with nonzero chemical potential for chiral fermions , it does not coincide with Eq.(2) obtained in the massless limit $`m/b^00`$.

The instability of the electromagnetic vacuum due to the 3+1 Chern- Simons term has been discussed by Caroll, Field and Jackiw , Andrianov and Soldati , and Joyce and Shaposhnikov . In the case of the nonzero density of right electrons ($`\mu _R0`$) this instability leads to the conversion of the density of the right electrons to the hypermagnetic field. This effect was used in the scenario for nucleation of the primordial magnetic field . In <sup>3</sup>He-A this phenomenon is represented by the well known helical instability of the counterflow, which is triggered by the term in Eq.(5) . The conversion of the counterflow of the normal component (an analogue of $`\mu _R`$ in the Joyce-Shaposhnikov scenario) to the inhomogeneous $`\widehat{𝐥}`$-field with $`\times \widehat{𝐥}0`$ (an analogue of hypermagnetic field) due to this instability has been observed in rotating <sup>3</sup>He-A .

Recently another type of the Chern-Simons term has been found for both systems, <sup>3</sup>He-A and chiral relativistic fermions with nonzero $`\mu `$ or/and $`T`$. This is the mixed axial-gravitational CS term, which contains both the gauge field and the gravimagnetic field :

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi ^2}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{L}{}}\mu _L^2e_L{\displaystyle \underset{R}{}}\mu _R^2e_R\right)𝐀𝐁_𝐠,`$ (6)   
$`𝐁_𝐠=\stackrel{}{}\times 𝐠,𝐠g_{0i}.`$ (7)   
Here $`g_{0i}`$ is the element of the metric in the reference frame of the heat bath (in superfluids it is the element of the effective metric in the frame, in which the normal component is at rest). If the heat bath of chiral fermions is rotating in Minkowski space, the ”gravimagnetic field” is expressed in terms of rotation velocity $`𝛀`$:

$$𝐁_𝐠=\times 𝐠=2\frac{𝛀}{c^2}.$$
(8)   
Here $`c`$ is the material parameter, which is the speed of light in relativistic system, and the initial slope in the energy spectrum of fermionic quasiparticles propagating in the plane transverse to the $`\widehat{𝐥}`$-vector in <sup>3</sup>He-A . The material parameters do not enter Eq.(6) explicitly: they enter only through the metric. That is why the same equation Eq.(6) can be applied to different fermionic systems, including those with varying speed of light. In relativistic system this equation describes the macroscopic parity violating effect: rotation of the heat bath (or of the black hole) produces the flux of the chiral fermions along the rotation axis .

Comparison of the Eqs.(6) and (4) suggests that the two $`CPT`$-odd terms can be united if one uses the Larmor theorem and introduces the combined fields:

$$𝐀_{L(R)}=e_{L(R)}𝐀+\frac{1}{2}\mu _{L(R)}𝐠,𝐁_{L(R)}=\times 𝐀_{L(R)}.$$
(9)   
Then the general form of the Chern-Simons $`CPT`$-odd term is

$$\frac{1}{4\pi ^2}\left(\underset{L}{}\mu _L𝐀_L𝐁_L\underset{R}{}\mu _R𝐀_R𝐁_R\right).$$
(10)   
Note that in the Standard Model the nullification of the $`CPT`$-odd term in Eq.(10) occurs if the ”gyromagnetic” ratio $`e/\mu `$ is the same for all fermions. This happens because of the anomaly cancellation. For the $`CPT`$-odd term induced by the vacuum fermions, the anomaly cancellation was discussed in Refs.. In <sup>3</sup>He-A the ”gyromagnetic ratio” is the same for two fermionic species, $`e_L/\mu _L=e_R/\mu _R`$, but the CS terms survive, since there is no anomaly cancellation in this system.

In <sup>3</sup>He-A there are also subtle points related to gauge invariance of the CS term, as discussed by Coleman and Glashow , and to the reference frame. They are determined by physical situations.

(i) The reference frame for superfluid velocity $`𝐯_s`$ is the heat bath frame – the frame of the normal component moving with velocity $`𝐯_n`$. At $`T=0`$ this frame disappears: thermal fermions are frozen out. To avoid uncertainty in determination of the counterflow velocity $`𝐯_s𝐯_n`$, and thus of the chemical potential of the chiral fermions, the limit $`T0`$ must be taken after all other limits.

(ii) The leading terms in the low-energy effective action for the ”electrodynamics” of <sup>3</sup>He-A are gauge invariant, because the main contributions to the effective action are induced by the low-energy fermions, which are ”relativistic” and obey the gauge invariant Lagrangian. The Eq.(10) is an example of such gauge invariant term in the low-energy action. It is gauge invariant if the $`b^0`$ parameter (or $`\mu _R`$) is constant, i.e. if the background counterflow and $`\widehat{𝐥}_0`$ field are homogeneous. The inhomogeneous corrections, which correspond to the inhomogeneous $`b^0`$, violate the gauge invariance. This is natural, since these corrections are determined by the higher energy fermions, which do not obey the gauge invariance from the very beginning. This is in agreement with the conclusion made in Ref., that for existence of the CS term the ”weak condition” – the gauge invariance at zero 4-momentum – is required.

I thank Alex Vilenkin for discussions. This work was supported in part by the Russian Foundations for Fundamental Research grant No. 96-02-16072 and by European Science Foundation.