Rings of $SL_2({\mathbb C})$-Characters and the Kauffman Bracket Skein Module

We show that the Kauffman bracket skein module of a closed Seifert fibered 3-manifold $M$ is finitely generated over $\mathbb Z[A^{\pm 1}]$ if and only if $M$ is irreducible and non-Haken. We analyze in detail the character varieties $X(M)$ of such manifolds and show that under mild conditions they are reduced. We compute the Kauffman bracket skein modules for these $3$-manifolds (over $\mathbb Q(A)$) and show that their dimensions coincide with $|X(M)|.$

The Kauffman bracket skein module $K(M)$ of a 3-manifold $M$ is defined over formal power series in the variable $h$ by letting $A=e^{h/4}$. For a compact oriented surface $F$, it is shown that $K(F \times I)$ is a quantization of the $\g$-characters of the fundamental group of $F$, corresponding to a geometrically defined Poisson bracket. Finite type invariants for unoriented knots and links are defined. Topologically free Kauffman bracket modules are shown to generate finit...

The sliced skein algebra of a closed surface of genus $g$ with $m$ punctures, $\mathfrak{S}=\Sigma_{g,m}$, is the quotient of the Kauffman bracket skein algebra $\mathcal{S}_\xi(\mathfrak{S})$ corresponding to fixing the scalar values of its peripheral curves. We show that the sliced skein algebra of a finite type surface is a domain if the ground ring is a domain. When the quantum parameter $\xi$ is a root of unity we calculate the center of the sliced skein algebra and its ...

Determining the structure of the Kauffman bracket skein module of all $3$-manifolds over the ring of Laurent polynomials $\mathbb Z[A^{\pm 1}]$ is a big open problem in skein theory. Very little is known about the skein module of non-prime manifolds over this ring. In this paper, we compute the Kauffman bracket skein module of the $3$-manifold $(S^1 \times S^2) \ \# \ (S^1 \times S^2)$ over the ring $\mathbb Z[A^{\pm 1}]$. We do this by analysing the submodule of handle slidi...

This paper resolves the unicity conjecture of Bonahon and Wong for the Kauffman bracket skein algebras of all oriented finite type surfaces at all roots of unity. The proof is a consequence of a general unicity theorem that says that the irreducible representations of a prime affine $k$-algebra over an algebraically closed field $k$, that is finitely generated as a module over its center, are generically classified by their central characters. The center of the Kauffman brack...

We investigate aspects of Kauffman bracket skein algebras of surfaces and modules of 3-manifolds using quantum torus methods. These methods come in two flavors: embedding the skein algebra into a quantum torus related to quantum Teichmuller space, or filtering the algebra and obtaining an associated graded algebra that is a monomial subalgebra of a quantum torus. We utilize the former method to generalize the Chebyshev homomorphism of Bonahon and Wong between skein algebras o...

An SL_n-character of a group G is the trace of an SL_n-representation of G. We show that all algebraic relations between SL_n-characters of G can be visualized as relations between graphs (resembling Feynman diagrams) in any topological space X, with pi_1(X)=G. We also show that all such relations are implied by a single local relation between graphs. In this way, we provide a topological approach to the study of SL_n-representations of groups. The motivation for this paper...

This is a survey article describing the various ways in which the Kauffman bracket skein module is a quantization of surface group characters. These include a purely heuristic sense of deformation of a presentation, a Poisson quantization, and a lattice gauge field theory quantization.

We compute the Kauffman skein module of the complement of torus knots in S^3. Precisely, we show that these modules are isomorphic to the algebra of Sl(2,C)-characters tensored with the ring of Laurent polynomials.

We study Kirby problems 1.92(E)-(G), which, roughly speaking, ask for which compact oriented $3$-manifold $M$ the Kauffman bracket skein module $\mathcal{S}(M)$ has torsion as a $\mathbb{Z}[A^{\pm 1}]$-module. We give new criteria for the presence of torsion in terms of how large the $SL_2(\mathbb{C})$-character variety of $M$ is. This gives many counterexamples to question 1.92(G)-(i) in Kirby's list. For manifolds with incompressible tori, we give new effective criteria for...