Chern-Simons invariants of 3-manifolds and representation spaces of knot groups (Q1823514)

A formula is proven expressing the Chern-Simons invariant of a flat SU(2)-connection on a 3-manifold as an integral along a path (joining the holonomy of the given connection to the trivial representation) of SL(2,C)-representations of the complement of a knot in a 3-manifold. The integrand is a simple function of the values of these representations on the peripheral subgroup of the knot. This formula is then applied to compute Chern-Simons invariants of Seifert-fibered homology spheres (previously computed using a different method by Stern and Fintushel) and to compute numerically the Chern-Simons invariants of several manifolds obtained from Dehn surgery on the figure 8 knot. Finally, a formula is proven which explicitly gives the SU(2)-representations and Chern-Simons invariants of torus bundles over \(S^ 1\) in terms of their monodromy matrices.