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arXiv · 2508.15121

Vacuum Energy and Topological Mass from a Constant Magnetic Field and Boundary Conditions in Coupled Scalar Field Theories

A. J. D. Farias Junior·Andrea Erdas·Herondy F. Santana Mota
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Abstract

We investigate the combined effects of a uniform magnetic field and boundary conditions on vacuum energy and topological mass generation in a coupled scalar field theory. The system consists of a real scalar field, subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions, interacting via self- and cross-couplings with a gauge-coupled complex scalar field obeying mixed boundary conditions between two perfectly reflecting parallel plates. The magnetic field induces Landau quantization, leading to novel contributions. Employing zeta-function regularization within the effective potential formalism, we derive the renormalized effective potential up to second order in the coupling constants without imposing a vanishing magnetic field in the renormalization scheme. Our renormalization approach preserves magnetic contributions while properly removing divergences, enabling a consistent treatment of finite-size corrections, magnetic effects, and interaction terms. We compute the vacuum energy per unit area of the plates, analyze the emergence of a topological mass from boundary and magnetic contributions, and evaluate the first-order coupling-constant corrections at two-loop order. Detailed asymptotic analysis are presented for both weak- and strong-field regimes, revealing exponential suppression at high magnetic fields and nontrivial polynomial and logarithmic behavior in the weak-field limit.

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A. J. D. Farias Junior, Andrea Erdas, Herondy F. Santana Mota. 2025-08-20. Vacuum Energy and Topological Mass from a Constant Magnetic Field and Boundary Conditions in Coupled Scalar Field Theories. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.15121

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