CHERN-SIMONS THEORY AS THE LARGE-MASS LIMIT OF TOPOLOGICALLY MASSIVE YANG-MILLS THEORY

We study quantum Chern-Simons theory as the large-mass limit of the limit D --> 3 of dimensionally regularized topologically massive Yang-Mills theory. This approach can also be interpreted as a BRS-invariant hybrid regularization of Chern-Simons theory, consisting of a higher-covariant derivative Yang-Mills term plus dimensional regularization. Working in the Landau gauge, we compute radiative corrections up to second order in perturbation theory and show that there is no two-loop correction to the one-loop shift k --> k + c(v), k being the bare Chern-Simons parameter. In passing, we also prove by explicit computation that topologically massive Yang-Mills theory is UV finite.