A functional equation for the Lefschetz zeta functions of infinite cyclic coverings with an application to knot theory

The leading coefficient of the Alexander polynomial of a knot is the most informative element in this invariant, and the growth of orders of the first homology of cyclic branched covering spaces is also a familiar subject. Accordingly, there are a lot of investigations into each subject. However, there is no study which deal with the both subjects in a same context. In this paper, we show that the two subjects are closely related in p-adic number theory and dynamical systems.

We consider the space of all representations of the commutator subgroup of a knot group into a finite abelian group {\Sigma}, together with a shift map {\sigma}_x. This is a finite dynamical system, introduced by D.Silver and S. Williams. We describe the lengths of its cycles in terms of the roots of the Alexander polynomial of the knot. This generalizes our previous result for {\Sigma}= Z/p, p is prime, and gives a complete classification of depth 2 solvable coverings of the...

The connection between Lefschetz formulae and zeta function is explained. As a particular example the theory of the generalized Selberg zeta function is presented. Applications are given to the theory of Anosov flows and prime geodesic theorems.

There is a well-known zeta function of the $\mathbb{Z}$-dynamical system generated by an element of the symmetric group. By considering this zeta function as a model, we can construct a new zeta function of an element of the braid group.In this paper,we show that the Alexander polynomial which is the most classical polynomial invariant of knots can be expressed in terms of this braid zeta function.Furthermore we define the function $Z_q$ associated with some braids. We show t...

This is an expository article of our work on analogies between knot theory and algebraic number theory. We shall discuss foundational analogies between knots and primes, 3-manifolds and number rings mainly from the group-theoretic point of view.

In this paper we investigate the Alexander polynomial of (1,1)-knots, which are knots lying in a 3-manifold with genus one at most, admitting a particular decomposition. More precisely, we study the connections between the Alexander polynomial and a polynomial associated to a cyclic presentation of the fundamental group of an n-fold strongly-cyclic covering branched over the knot, which we call the n-cyclic polynomial. In this way, we generalize to all (1,1)-knots, with the o...

We associate with an infinite cyclic cover of a punctured neighborhood of a simple normal crossing divisor on a complex quasi-projective manifold (assuming certain finiteness conditions are satisfied) a rational function in $K_0({\rm Var}^{\hat \mu}_{\mathbb{C}})[\mathbb{L}^{-1}]$, which we call {\it motivic infinite cyclic zeta function}, and show its birational invariance. Our construction is a natural extension of the notion of {\it motivic infinite cyclic covers} introduc...

Earlier the authors offered an equivariant version of the classical monodromy zeta function of a G-invariant function germ with a finite group G as a power series with the coefficients from the Burnside ring of the group G tensored by the field of rational numbers. One of the main ingredients of the definition was the definition of the equivariant Lefschetz number of a G-equivariant transformation given by W.L\"uck and J.Rosenberg. Here we offer another approach to a definiti...

The authors conjectured previously that a knot is nonfibered if and only if its infinite cyclic cover has uncountably many finite covers. We prove the conjecture for a class of knots that includes all knots of genus 1, using techniques from symbolic dynamics.

This article is an overview of the vanishing cycles method in number theory over function fields. We first explain how this works in detail in a toy example, and then give three examples which are relevant to current research. The focus will be a general explanation of which sorts of problems this method can be applied to.