Vassiliev Invariants for Flows Via Chern-Simons Perturbation Theory

Abstract

The perturbative expansion of Chern-Simons gauge theory leads to invariants of knots and links, the finite type invariants or Vassiliev invariants. It has been proven that at any order in perturbation theory the resulting expression is an invariant of that order. Bott-Taubes integrals on configuration spaces are introduced in the present context to write Feynman diagrams at a given order in perturbation theory in a geometrical and topological setting. One of the consequences of the configuration space formalism is that the resulting amplitudes are given in cohomological terms. This cohomological structure can be used to translate Bott-Taubes integrals into Chern-Simons perturbative amplitudes and vice versa. In this article this program is performed up to third order in the coupling constant. This expands some work previously worked out by Thurston. Finally we take advantage of these results to incorporate in the formalism a smooth and divergenceless vector field on the $3$-manifold. The Bott-Taubes integrals obtained are used for constructing higher-order asymptotic Vassiliev invariants extending the work of Komendarczyk and Volić.