Topological symmetry breaking and confinement of anyons

Abstract

We study the behaviour of Wilson and 't Hooft loop operators for the 2+1 dim. Abelian-Higgs model with Chern-Simons term. The phase of topological symmetry breaking where the vortex field condenses, found by Samuel for the model in the absence of the Chern-Simons term, persists in its presence. In this phase, the topological linking of instantons, which are configurations of closed vortex loops, with the Wilson loop on one hand and with the 't Hooft loop on the other hand gives rise to a long-range, logarithmic, confining potential between electric charges and magnetic flux tubes. This is surprising since the gauge field is short range due to the Chern-Simons term. Gauss' law forces the concomitance of charge and magnetic flux, hence the confinement is actually of anyons.