Fermion-induced quantum action of vortex systems

Abstract

The quantum action generated by fermions which are minimally coupled to abelian vortex background fields is studied in D=2+1 and D=3+1 Euclidean dimensions. We present a detailed analysis of single- and binary-vortex configurations using the recently developed method of worldline numerics. The dependence of the fermion-induced quantum action on the fermion mass and the magnetic fluxes carried by the vortices is studied, and the binary-vortex interaction is computed. Additionally, we discuss the chiral condensate generated from a dilute gas of vortices in the intermediate fermion mass range for the case D=3+1. As a byproduct, our findings provide insight into the validity limits of the derivative expansion, which is the standard analytical approach to inhomogeneous backgrounds.