Dynamical Mass Generation in QED3 with Chern--Simons Term

In (2+1)-dimensional QED with a Chern-Simons term, we study dynamical breaking of chiral symmetry, using the Dyson--Schwinger equation for the fermions. There is a region in parameter space were dynamical chiral symmetry breaking occurs, just as in pure QED3 (without Chern--Simons term); outside this region, this chiral symmetry breaking solution does not exists. Our results, both numerically and analytically, show that the chiral phase transition is a discontinuous first-order transition.