Link Invariants and Combinatorial Quantization of Hamiltonian Chern-Simons Theory

Abstract

We define and study the properties of observables associated to any link in $\Sigma\times {\bf R}$ (where $\Sigma$ is a compact surface) using the combinatorial quantization of hamiltonian Chern-Simons theory. These observables are traces of holonomies in a non commutative Yang-Mills theory where the gauge symmetry is ensured by a quantum group. We show that these observables are link invariants taking values in a non commutative algebra, the so called Moduli Algebra. When $\Sigma=S^2$ these link invariants are pure numbers and are equal to Reshetikhin-Turaev link invariants.