Chern--Simons Perturbation Theory II

Abstract

In a previous paper [\AS], we used superspace techniques to prove that perturbation theory (around a classical solution with no zero modes) for Chern--Simons quantum field theory on a general $3$-manifold $M$ is finite. We conjectured (and proved for the case of $2$-loops) that, after adding counterterms of the expected form, the terms in the perturbation theory define topological invariants. In this paper we prove this conjecture. Our proof uses a geometric compactification of the region on which the Feynman integrand of Feynman diagrams is smooth as well as an extension of the basic propagator of the theory.

40 pages