Stavros Garoufalidis and Marcos Marino
Abstract: The contribution of reducible connections to the $U(N)$ Chern-Simons invariant of a Seifert manifold $M$ can be expressed in some cases in terms of matrix integrals. We show that the $U(N)$ evaluation of the LMO invariant of any rational homology sphere admits a matrix model representation which agrees with the Chern-Simons matrix integral for Seifert spheres and the trivial connection.
Key words: Chern-Simons theory, matrix models, perturbation theory, Kontsevich integral, LMO invariant, multicut models.
Notes: 10 pages, 8 figures.