240 E. Guadagnini / Nuclear Physics B 912 (2016) 238–248
In general, equation (2.3) must be integrated with the corrections coming from the gauge-fixing
procedure. This point will be discussed in a while; for the moment let us proceed with the basic
argument. Since the curvature F
a
μν
transforms covariantly under a local gauge transformation,
the contact terms in the Schwinger–Dyson equations can combine to produce a gauge-invariant
expression. In particular, according to the rule shown in equation (2.3), the 3-points function of
the curvature should be given by the gauge-invariant combination
μαβ
F
a
αβ
(x)
νγδ
F
b
γδ
(y)
τσξ
F
c
σξ
(z)
= 16
4π
k
2
f
abc
μντ
δ
3
(x − y)δ
3
(z − y) . (2.4)
In the CS theory, the value of the 3-points correlation function of the curvature corresponds to
the gauge-invariant expression (2.4), which is proportional to the structure-constants tensor f
abc
of the gauge group divided by the square of the coupling constant k. As it will be shown below,
the expression appearing in equation (2.4) should have a gauge-independent meaning because
it can also be obtained in the limit of vanishing gauge-fixing. As a check, one can easily verify
the validity of equation (2.4) to lo
west orders of perturbation theory when the CS theory is
formulated in R
3
.
In order to proceed with the deri
vation of the properties of the renormalized Schwinger–Dyson
functional in the CS theory, one needs to specify the gauge-fixing procedure and the renormaliza-
tion conditions. Let us consider the perturbative approach to the CS theory in R
3
. Really, in the
following argument R
3
can be replaced by a generic 3-manifold M which is a homology sphere
because, in this case, the field variables have no zero modes [6] and the standard perturbative
expansion is well defined. In the Landau gauge, the gauge-fixing term [9] is given by
S
φπ
=
k
4π
d
3
x
− B
a
∂
μ
A
a
μ
+ ∂
μ
c
a
∂
μ
c
a
− f
abc
A
b
μ
c
c
. (2.5)
Let be the renormalized effective action of the CS theory; i is given by the sum of the
one-particle-irreducible diagrams with external legs represented by classical fields.
can be computed by means of v
arious techniques; one convenient method is the standard
quantum field theory procedure which is called the renormalized perturbation theory in the
Peskin–Schroeder book [10]. Of course, any other renormalization method leads to the same
physical conclusions; the use of renormalized perturbation theory is quite instructive because the
basic concepts of the renormalization clearly emer
ge. In renormalized perturbation theory, the
values of all the parameters entering the lagrangian coincide with the renormalized values, and
the so-called local counterterms cancel precisely all the possible contributions to these parame-
ters which are found in the loop expansion. In this wa
y, the normalization conditions [3,10] are
indeed satisfied to all orders of perturbation theory, as it must be.
Renormalized perturbation theory represents one of the fundamental constituents of the theory
of quantized fields [11,12]; this subject wa
s of particular interest for Raymond Stora [13]. So I
will elaborate a bit on this issue in the context of the quantum CS field theory. At the beginning
of the years 90’
s, with Raymond we had fruitful discussions on this matter.
The renormalization process of the CS action (2.1) concerns tw
o parameters: the wave func-
tion normalization and the coupling constant. Actually, as in any gauge theory, because of the
gauge invariance one of the normalization conditions is superfluous [3]; therefore, in our case,
only one parameter needs to be specified. The CS normalization conditions can then be e
xpressed
as