Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T11:43:40.374Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Traceless SU(2) representations of 2-stranded tangles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2016

YOSHIHIRO FUKUMOTO
Affiliation:
Ritsumeikan University, Department of Mathematical Sciences 1-1-1 Nojihigashi, Kusatsu, Shiga, 525-8577, Japan. e-mail: [email protected]
PAUL KIRK
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Department of Mathematics Bloomington, Indiana 47401, U.S.A. e-mail: [email protected]
JUANITA PINZÓN-CAICEDO
Affiliation:
University of Georgia, Department of Mathematics Athens, GA 30602, U.S.A. e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Given a 2-stranded tangle T contained in a ℤ-homology ball Y, we investigate the character variety R(Y, T) of conjugacy classes of traceless SU(2) representations of π1(Y \ T). In particular we completely determine the subspace of binary dihedral representations, and identify all of R(Y, T) for many tangles naturally associated to knots in S3. Moreover, we determine the image of the restriction map from R(T, Y) to the traceless SU(2) character variety of the 4-punctured 2-sphere (the pillowcase). We give examples to show this image can be non-linear in general, and show it is linear for tangles associated to pretzel knots.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Philosophical Society 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

[1] Bar-Natan, D. KnotTheory', a Mathematica package. Available at http://katlas.breakmath.toronto.edu/wiki/The_Mathematica_Package_KnotTheory%60.Google Scholar
[2] Bredon, G. Introduction to compact transformation groups. Pure and Applied Mathematics, vol. 46 (Academic Press, New York-London, 1972), xiii+459 pp.Google Scholar
[3] Burde, G. SU(2)-representation spaces for two-bridge knot groups. Math. Ann. 288 (1990), no. 1, 103119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4] Burde, G. and Zieschang, H. Knots. Second edition. de Gruyter Studies in Mathematics, 5 (Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin, 2003), xii+559 pp.Google Scholar
[5] Casson, A. and Gordon, C. Cobordism of classical knots (with an appendix by P. M. Gilmer). In A la recherche de la topologie perdue. Progr. Math. 62 (Birkhäuser Boston, Boston, MA, 1986), 182199.Google Scholar
[6] Cooper, D., Culler, M., Gillet, H., Long, D.D. and Shalen, P. Plane curves associated to character varieties of 3-manifolds. Invent. Math. 118 (1994), no. 1, 4784.Google Scholar
[7] Herald, C. Legendrian cobordism and Chern-Simons theory on 3-manifolds with boundary. Comm. Anal. Geom. 2 (1994), no. 3, 337413.Google Scholar
[8] Herald, C. Flat connections, the Alexander invariant and Casson's invariant. Comm. Anal. Geom. 5 (1997), no. 1, 93120.Google Scholar
[9] Herald, C., Hedden, M. and Kirk, P. The pillowcase and perturbations of traceless representations of knot groups. Geom. Topol. 18 (2014), no. 1, 211287.Google Scholar
[10] Herald, C., Kirk, P. and Livingston, C. Metabelian representations, twisted Alexander polynomials, knot slicing and mutation. Math. Z. 265 (2010), no. 4, 925949.Google Scholar
[11] Heusener, M. and Kroll, J. Deforming abelian SU(2)-representations of knot groups. Comment. Math. Helv. 73 (1998), no. 3, 480498.Google Scholar
[12] Jacobsson, M. and Rubinsztein, R. L. Symplectic topology of SU(2)-representation varieties and link homology, I: Symplectic braid action and the first Chern class. Preprint (2008). http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.2902.Google Scholar
[13] Klassen, E. Representations of knot groups in SU(2). Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 326 (1991), no. 2, 795828.Google Scholar
[14] Klassen, E. Representations in SU(2) of the fundamental groups of the Whitehead link and of doubled knots. Forum Math. 5 (1993), no. 2, 93109.Google Scholar
[15] Kirk, P. and Klassen, E. Chern–Simons invariants of 3-manifolds decomposed along tori and the circle bundle over the representation space of T 2 . Comm. Math. Phys. 153 (1993), no. 3, 521557.Google Scholar
[16] Kronheimer, P. and Mrowka, T. Knot homology groups from instantons. J. Topol. 4 (2011), no. 4, 835918.Google Scholar
[17] Kronheimer, P. and Mrowka, T. Instanton Floer homology and the Alexander polynomial. Algebr. Geom. Topol. 10 (2010), no. 3, 17151738.Google Scholar
[18] Kronheimer, P. and Mrowka, T. Khovanov homology is an unknot-detector. Publ. Math. Inst. Hautes Études Sci. 113 (2011), 97208.Google Scholar
[19] Kronheimer, P. and Mrowka, T. Filtrations on instanton homology. Quantum Topol. 5 (2014), no. 1, 6197.Google Scholar
[20] Lewallen, S. Khovanov homology of alternating links and SU(2) representations of the link group. Preprint (2009). http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.5047v1 Google Scholar
[21] Lim, Y. Instanton homology and the Alexander polynomial. Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 138 (2010), no. 10, 37593768.Google Scholar
[22] Lin, X.S. A knot invariant via representation spaces. J. Differential Geom. 35 (1992), no. 2, 337357.Google Scholar
[23] Zentner, R. Representation spaces of pretzel knots. Algebr. Geom. Topol. 11 (2011), no. 5, 29412970.Google Scholar