Confined vortices in topologically massive U(1) x U(1) theory

We report on a new topological vortex solution in U(1) x U(1) Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory. The existence of the vortex is envisaged by analytical means, and a numerical solution is obtained by integrating the equations of motion. These vortices have a long-range force because one of the U(1)'s remains unbroken in the infrared, which is guarded by the Coleman-Hill theorem. The sum of the winding numbers of an ensemble of vortices has to vanish; otherwise the system would have a logarithmically divergent energy. In turn, these vortices exhibit classical confinement. We investigate the rich parameter space of the solutions, and show that one recovers the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen, U(1) Maxwell-Chern-Simons, U(1) pure Chern-Simons, and global vortices as various limiting cases. Unlike these limiting cases, the higher winding solutions of our vortices carry noninteger charges under the broken U(1). This is the first vortex solution exhibiting such behavior.