CHERN-SIMONS-WITTEN INVARIANTS OF LENS SPACES AND TORUS BUNDLES, AND THE SEMICLASSICAL APPROXIMATION

We derive explicit formulas for the Chem-Simons-Witten invariants of lens spaces and torus bundles over S1, for arbitrary values of the level k. Most of our results are for the group G = SU(2), though some are for more general compact groups. We explicitly exhibit agreement of the limiting values of these formulas as k --> infinity with the semiclassical approximation predicted by the Chern-Simons path integral.