Self-energy anomaly of an electric pointlike dipole in three-dimensional static spacetimes

Abstract: We calculate the self-energy anomaly of a pointlike electric dipole located in a static $(2+1)$-dimensional curved spacetime. The energy functional for this problem is invariant under an infinite-dimensional (gauge) group of transformations parameterized by one scalar function of two variables. We demonstrate that the problem of the calculation of the self-energy anomaly for a pointlike dipole can be reduced to the calculation of quantum fluctuations of an effective two-dimensional Euclidean quantum field theory. We reduced the problem in question to the calculation of the conformal anomaly of an effective scalar field in two dimensions and obtained an explicit expression for the self-energy anomaly of an electric dipole in an asymptotically flat, regular $(2+1)$-dimensional spacetime which may have electrically neutral black-hole-like metrics with regular Killing horizon.