The Structure of Radiatively Induced Lorentz and CPT Violation in Qed at Finite Temperature

We obtain the induced Lorentz- and CPT-violating term in QED at finite temperature using the imaginary-time formalism and dimensional regularization. Its form resembles a Chern-Simons-like structure, but, unexpectedly, it does not depend on the temporal component of the fixed bμ constant vector that is coupled to the axial-vector current. Nevertheless, Ward identities are respected and its coefficient vanishes at T=0, consistent with previous computations with the same regularization procedure, and it is a nontrivial function of temperature. We argue that at finite T a Chern-Simons-like Lorentz- and CPT-violating term is generically present, the value of its coefficient being unambiguously determined up to a T-independent constant, related to the zero-temperature renormalization conditions.