New methods for computing a variety of gauge theoretic invariants for
homology 3-spheres are developed. These invariants include the Chern-Simons
invariants, the spectral flow of the odd signature operator, and the rho
invariants of irreducible SU(2) representations. These quantities are
calculated for flat SU(2) connections on homology 3-spheres obtained by 1/k
Dehn surgery on (2,q) torus knots. The methods are then applied to compute the
SU(3) gauge theoretic Casson invariant (introduced in [H U Boden and C M
Herald, The SU(3) Casson invariant for integral homology 3--spheres, J. Diff.
Geom. 50 (1998) 147-206]) for Dehn surgeries on (2,q) torus knots for q=3,5,7
and 9.Comment: Version 3: minor corrections from version 2. Published by Geometry
and Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTVol5/paper6.abs.htm
