We consider the $U(1)$ Chern-Simons gauge theory defined in a general closed oriented 3-manifold $M$; the functional integration is used to compute the normalized partition function and the expectation values of the link holonomies. The nonperturbati
ve path-integral is defined in the space of the gauge orbits of the connections which belong to the various inequivalent $U(1)$ principal bundles over $M$; the different sectors of the configuration space are labelled by the elements of the first homology group of $M$ and are characterized by appropriate background connections. The gauge orbits of flat connections, whose classification is also based on the homology group, control the extent of the nonperturbative contributions to the mean values. The functional integration is achieved in any 3-manifold $M$, and the corresponding path-integral invariants turn out to be strictly related with the abelian Reshetikhin-Turaev surgery invariants.
We implement the metric-independent Fock-Schwinger gauge in the abelian quantum Chern-Simons field theory defined in ${mathbb R}^3$. The expressions of the various components of the propagator are determined. Although the gauge field propagator diffe
rs from the Gauss linking density, we prove that its integral along two oriented knots is equal to the linking number.
For the abelian Chern-Simons field theory, we consider the quantum functional integration over the Deligne-Beilinson cohomology classes and we derive the main properties of the observables in a generic closed orientable 3-manifold. We present an expl
icit path-integral non-perturbative computation of the Chern-Simons links invariants in the case of the torsion-free 3-manifolds $S^3$, $S^1 times S^2$ and $S^1 times Sigma_g$.
