The universality of the shift of the Chern-Simons parameter for a general class of BRS invariant regularizations

Abstract

We consider a biparametric family of BRS invariant regularization methods of SU(N) Chern-Simons theory (the parameters defining the family taking arbitrary values in $\RR^2$) and show that the shift $k\to k + sign(k) N$ of the Chern-Simons parameter $k$ occurs for arbitrary values of the family defining parameters. This supports irrefutably the conjecture that the shift of $k$ is universal for BRS invariant regulators.