An explicit construction of an Abelian topological quantum field theory in dimension 3 (Q1868892)

The goal of this note is to define an Abelian topological quantum field theory (TQFT) in dimension 3 and to relate it to familiar topological invariants. This TQFT is associated to an invariant for closed manifolds previously introduced by the author using a quadratic form on a finite Abelian group. The TQFT arises naturally via the Atiyah-Segal axioms; the idea of the construction comes from the seminal work of Blanchet, Habegger, Masbaum, Vogel. The last part of the paper gives an explicit description of the TQFT based on the linking pairing.