Ghosts, knots and Kontsevich integrals (Q1345103)

The work provides a physical interpretation of Vassiliev-Kontsevich invariants in the framework of Chern-Simons gauge field theory. Using the Hamiltonian formulation of the theory and computing the expectation values of Wilson loops to some order in the perturbative expansion, it is shown that the instantaneous propagation of Faddeev-Popov ghosts represents ``building blocks'' for the topology of a knot.