Spontaneous symmetry breaking for scalar QED with nonminimal Chern-Simons coupling - art. no. 045015

We investigate the two-loop effective potential for both minimally and non- minimally coupled Maxwell-Chern-Simons theories. The nonminimal gauge inter action represents the magnetic moment interaction between a charged scalar and the electromagnetic field. In a previous paper we have shown that the t wo loop effective potential for this model is renormalizable with an approp riate choice of the non-minimal coupling constant. We carry out a detailed analysis of the spontaneous symmetry breaking induced by radiative correcti ons. As long as the renormalization point for all couplings is chosen to be the true minimum of the effective potential, both models predict the prese nce of spontaneous symmetry breaking. Two loop corrections are small compar ed to the one loop result, and thus the symmetry breaking is perturbatively stable.