Aspects of screening and confinement in a topologically massive U{left( 1 right)_(cal W)} times U{(1)_(cal Y)} Chern-Simons-Higgs theory

By using the gauge-invariant but path-dependent, variables formalism, we consider a recently proposed topologically massive $U{\left( 1 \right)_{\cal W}} \times U{(1)_{\cal Y}}$ Chern-Simons-Higgs theory in $2+1$ dimensions. In particular, we inspect the impact of a Chern-Simons mixing term between two Abelian gauge fields on physical observables. We pursue our investigation by analysing the model in two different situations. In the first case, where we integrate out the massive excitation and consider an effective model for the massless field, we show that the interaction energy contains a linear term leading to the confinement of static charge probes along with a screening contribution. The second situation, where the massless field can be exactly integrated over with its constraint duly taken into account, the interesting feature is that the resulting effective model describes a purely screening phase, without any trace of a confining regime.