Statistical physics of flux-carrying Brownian particles

Abstract

Chern-Simons gauge field theory has provided a natural framework to gain deep insight about many novel phenomena in two-dimensional condensed matter. We investigate the nonequilibrium thermodynamics properties of a (two-dimensional) dissipative harmonic particle when the Abelian topological gauge action and the (linear) Brownian motion dynamics are treated on an equal footing. We find out that the particle exhibits remarkable magneticlike features in the quantum domain that are beyond the celebrated Landau diamagnetism: this could be viewed as the non-relativistic Brownian counterpart of the composite excitation of a charge and magneticlike flux. Interestingly, it is shown that the properties of such flux-carrying Brownian particle are in good agreement with the classical statistical mechanics at sufficient high temperatures, as well as are widely consistent with the Third Law of thermodynamics in the studied dissipative scenarios. Our findings also suggest that its ground state may be far from trivial, i.e. it fakes a seemingly degenerate state.