Related papers: SO(N) Reformulated Link Invariants from Topologica…
We present a finite-dimensional and smooth formulation of string structures on spin bundles. It uses trivializations of the Chern-Simons 2-gerbe associated to this bundle. Our formulation is particularly suitable to deal with string…
The exact free energy of SU($N$) Chern-Simons theory at level $k$ is expanded in powers of $(N+k)^{-2}.$ This expansion keeps rank-level duality manifest, and simplifies as $k$ becomes large, keeping $N$ fixed (or vice versa)---this is the…
We review the string/gauge theory duality relating Chern-Simons theory and topological strings on noncompact Calabi-Yau manifolds, as well as its mathematical implications for knot invariants and enumerative geometry.
We use recent progress on Chern-Simons gauge theory in three dimensions [18] to give explicit, closed form formulas for the star product on some functions on the affine space ${\mathcal A}(\Sigma)$ of (smooth) connections on the trivialized…
Three dimensional SU(2) Chern-Simons theory has been studied as a topological field theory to provide a field theoretic description of knots and links in three dimensions. A systematic method has been developed to obtain the link-invariants…
Chern-Simons theories, which are topological quantum field theories, provide a field theoretic framework for the study of knots and links in three dimensions. These are rare examples of quantum field theories which can be exactly and…
We derive formulas for the classical Chern-Simons invariant of irreducible $SU(n)$-flat connections on negatively curved locally symmetric three-manifolds. We determine the condition for which the theory remains consistent (with basic…
We reinterpret U(N) Chern-Simons-Witten theory quantized on a torus as a free fermion system. Its Hilbert space and some observables are simply related to those of group quantum mechanics, even at finite N and k. Its large N limit can be…
Invariant polynomials for torus links are obtained in the framework of the Chern-Simons topological gauge theory. The polynomials are computed as vacuum expectation values on the three-sphere of Wilson line operators representing the…
It is well known that for a field theory with the Chern-Simons action, expectation values of Wilson line operators are topological invariants. The standard result is expressed in terms of the Gaussian linkings of closed curves defining the…
Knot and link polynomials are topological invariants calculated from the expectation value of loop operators in topological field theories. In 3D Chern-Simons theory, these invariants can be found from crossing and braiding matrices of…
Level-rank duality relates the observables of two different Chern-Simons theories in which the roles of the Chern-Simons level and the rank of the gauge group are exchanged. In this note, we explore the consequences of this duality in the…
We study ${\cal N}=2$ compactifications of heterotic string theory on the CHL orbifold $(K3\times T^2)/\mathbb{Z}_N$ with $N= 2, 3, 5, 7$. $\mathbb{Z}_N$ acts as an involution on $K3$ together with a shift of $1/N$ along one of the circles…
We present the partition function of Chern-Simons theory with the exceptional gauge group on three-sphere in the form of a partition function of the refined closed topological string with relation $2\tau=g_s(1-b) $ between single K\"ahler…
We couple Chern-Simons gauge theory to 3-dimensional topological gravity with the aim of investigating its quantum topological invariance. We derive the relevant BRST rules and Batalin-Vilkovisky action. Standard BRST transformations of the…
We perform a topological-holomorphic twist of $\mathcal{N}=4$ supersymmetric gauge theory on a four-manifold of the form $M_4=\Sigma_1 \times \Sigma_2$ with Riemann surfaces $\Sigma_{1,2}$, and unravel the mathematical implications of its…
In this paper, we discuss a relation between Jones-Witten theory of knot invariants and topological open string theory on the basis of the volume conjecture. We find a similar Hamiltonian structure for both theories, and interpret the AJ…
We study Wilson loops in the three-dimensional N=6 supersymmetric Chern-Simons theory recently constructed by Aharony, Bergman, Jafferis and Maldacena, that is conjectured to be dual to type IIA string theory on AdS_4 x CP^3. We construct…
The partition functions of refined topological strings(A-models) are computed, which give rise to the circle-compactified five-dimensional supersymmetric linear quiver gauge theories in generic (not necessarily self-dual) Omega backgrounds.…
We describe a topological string theory which reproduces many aspects of the 1/N expansion of SU(N) Yang-Mills theory in two spacetime dimensions in the zero coupling (A=0) limit. The string theory is a modified version of topological…