Hall viscosity in abelian gauge theories*

We investigate the Hall viscosity of U(1) gauge theories. Starting with the Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory, by explicitly constructing the ground state wave functional, we show that the Hall viscosity is zero. We also add Lorentz-breaking parity-odd terms to the Lagrangian and observe that the Hall viscosity remains zero. We argue that the result is general and discuss the implications for the Hall viscosity of the composite fermions in the fractional quantum Hall effect.