Topological BF Theories in 3 and 4 Dimensions

Aberto S. Cattaneo, Paolo Cotta-Ramusino, Juerg Froehlich, Maurizio Martellini

Published 1995-05-04, updated 1995-05-05Version 2

In this paper we discuss topological BF theories in 3 and 4 dimensions. Observables are associated to ordinary knots and links (in 3 dimensions) and to 2-knots (in 4 dimensions). The vacuum expectation values of such observables give a wide range of invariants. Here we consider mainly the 3-dimensional case, where these invariants include Alexander polynomials, HOMFLY polynomials and Kontsevich integrals.