Another look at charge fractionalization at finite temperature

Abstract

We study again the phenomenon of charge fractionalization at finite temperature. Our calculations are done in a framework in which the connection between the induced fermion number and the chiral anomaly is manifest. We find that the fractional fermion number induced on a soliton decreases as temperature rises and vanishes at infinite temperature at one-loop level. These results are consistent with previous studies. As an application of our approach, we have also studied the behavior of the induced Chern-Simons term in the (2+1)-dimensional QED at finite temperature.