Kontsevich integral for Vassiliev invariants from Chern-Simons perturbation theory in the light-cone gauge

We analyze the structure of the perturbative series expansion of Chern-Simons gauge theory in the light-cone gauge. After introducing a regularization prescription that entails the consideration of framed knots, we present the general form of the vacuum expectation value of a Wilson loop. The resulting expression turns out to give the same framing dependence as the one obtained using nonperturbative methods and perturbative methods in covariant gauges. It also contains the Kontsevich integral for Vassiliev invariants of framed knots. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0022-2488(98)02909-0].