DEFORMED CHERN-SIMONS THEORIES

We construct a Chern-Simons action for q-deformed gauge theory which i s a simple and straight forward generalization of the usual one. Space -time continues to be an ordinary (commuting) manifold, while the gaug e potentials and the field strengths become q-commuting fields. Our ap proach, which is explicitly carried out for the case of 'minimal' defo rmations, has the advantage of leading naturally to a consistent Hamil tonian structure that has essentially all of the features of the undef ormed case, For example, using the new Poisson brackets, the constrain ts form a closed algebra and generate q-deformed gauge transformations . (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B,V.