Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants of Seifert 3-manifolds and a rational surgery formula

This is an invited contribution to the 2nd edition of the Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics. We give an overview of 3-dimensional topological quantum field theories (TQFTs) and the corresponding quantum invariants of 3-manifolds. We recall the main algebraic concepts and constructions, such as modular and spherical fusion categories, the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev and Turaev-Viro theories, and the relation between these two TQFTs. We also briefly discuss generalizations of ...

In this paper, we introduce the concept of 3-alterfolds with embedded separating surfaces. When the separating surface is decorated by a spherical fusion category, we obtain quantum invariants of 3-alterfold, which is consistent with many topological moves. These moves provide evaluation algorithms for various presentations of 3-alterfold, e.g. Heegaard splittings, triangulations, link surgeries. In particular, we obtain quantum invariants of 3-manifolds containing surfaces, ...

We write a formula for the LMO invariant of a rational homology sphere presented as a rational surgery on a link in S^3. Our main tool is a careful use of the Aarhus integral and the (now proven) "Wheels" and "Wheeling" conjectures of B-N, Garoufalidis, Rozansky and Thurston. As steps, side benefits and asides we give explicit formulas for the values of the Kontsevich integral on the Hopf link and on Hopf chains, and for the LMO invariant of lens spaces and Seifert fibered sp...

In the third paper in this series, we examine the Reshetikhin-Turaev and Turaev-Viro TQFTs at the level of surfaces. In particular, we show that for a closed surface $\Sigma$, $Z_{TV, \mathcal{C}}(\Sigma) \cong Z_{RT, Z(\C)}(\Sigma)$, thus extending the equality of 3-manifold invariants proved in an earlier paper to an equivalence of TQFTs. We also describe how to compute Turaev-Viro state sums for 3-manifolds with embedded ribbon graphs.

In the prequel of this paper, Kauffman and Ogasa introduced new topological quantum invariants of compact oriented 3-manifolds with boundary where the boundary is a disjoint union of two identical surfaces. The invariants are constructed via surgery on manifolds of the form $F \times I$ where $I$ denotes the unit interval. Since virtual knots and links are represented as links in such thickened surfaces, we are able also to construct invariants in terms of virtual link diagra...

In this paper we describe braid equivalence for knots and links in a 3-manifold $M$ obtained by rational surgery along a framed link in $S^3$. We first prove a sharpened version of the Reidemeister theorem for links in $M$. We then give geometric formulations of the braid equivalence via mixed braids in $S^3$ using the $L$-moves and the braid band moves. We finally give algebraic formulations in terms of the mixed braid groups $B_{m,n}$ using cabling and the techniques of p...

A celebrated theorem of Kirby identifies the set of closed oriented connected 3-manifolds with the set of framed links in $S^3$ modulo two moves. We give a similar description for the set of knots (and more generally, boundary links) in homology 3-spheres. As an application, we define a noncommutative version of the Alexander polynomial of a boundary link. Our surgery view of boundary links is a key ingredient in a construction of a rational version of the Kontsevich integral...

This paper is a self-contained introduction to the theory of renormalized Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants of links defined by Geer, Patureau-Mirand and Turaev. Whereas the standard Reshetikhin-Turaev theory of a $\mathbb{C}$-linear ribbon category assigns the trivial invariant to any link with a component colored by a simple object of vanishing quantum dimension, the renormalized theory does not. We give a streamlined development of the renormalized Reshetikhin-Turaev theory of...

We present a mathematically clean review of our previous results on 1/K expansion of the colored Jones polynomial and on perturbative invariants of 3d rational homology spheres. We also prove that perturbative invariants defined through the stationary phase surgery formula are invariant under Kirby moves.

In 2006 Habiro initiated a construction of generating functions for Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev (WRT) invariants known as unified WRT invariants. In a series of papers together with Irmgard Buehler and Christian Blanchet we extended his construction to a larger class of 3-manifolds. The unified invariants provide a strong tool to study properties of the whole collection of WRT invariants, e.g. their integrality, and hence, their categorification. In this paper we give a survey ...