On thermodynamics of N=6 superconformal Chern-Simons theory
Abstract
We study thermodynamics of N=6 superconformal Chern-Simons theory by computing quantum corrections to the free energy. We find that in weakly coupled ABJM theory on R(2) x S(1), the leading correction is non-analytic in the 't Hooft coupling lambda, and is approximately of order lambda2 log(lambda)3. The free energy is expressed in terms of the scalar thermal mass m, which is generated by screening effects. We show that this mass vanishes to 1-loop order. We then go on to 2-loop order where we find a finite and positive mass squared m2. We discuss differences in the calculation between Coulomb and Lorentz gauge. Our results indicate that the free energy is a monotonic function in lambda which interpolates smoothly to the N(3/2) behaviour at strong coupling.