Kauffman bracket skein module of the connected sum of handlebodies and non-injectivity

For the handlebody [Formula: see text] of genus [Formula: see text], Przytycki studied the (Kauffman bracket) skein module [Formula: see text] of the connected sum [Formula: see text] at [Formula: see text]. One of his results is that, in the case when [Formula: see text] is invertible for any [Formula: see text], a homomorphism [Formula: see text] is an isomorphism, which is induced by a natural way. In this paper, in the case when [Formula: see text], the ground ring is [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] is a [Formula: see text]-th root of unity ([Formula: see text]), we show that [Formula: see text] is not injective.

The Kauffman bracket skein module of the handlebody of genus 2 via braids

In this paper we present two new bases, [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], for the Kauffman bracket skein module of the handlebody of genus 2 [Formula: see text], KBSM[Formula: see text]. We start from the well-known Przytycki-basis of KBSM[Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], and using the technique of parting we present elements in [Formula: see text] in open braid form. We define an ordering relation on an augmented set [Formula: see text] consisting of monomials of all different “loopings” in [Formula: see text], that contains the sets [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] as proper subsets. Using the Kauffman bracket skein relation we relate [Formula: see text] to the sets [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] via a lower triangular infinite matrix with invertible elements in the diagonal. The basis [Formula: see text] is an intermediate step in order to reach at elements in [Formula: see text] that have no crossings on the level of braids, and in that sense, [Formula: see text] is a more natural basis of KBSM[Formula: see text]. Moreover, this basis is appropriate in order to compute Kauffman bracket skein modules of closed–connected–oriented (c.c.o.) 3-manifolds [Formula: see text] that are obtained from [Formula: see text] by surgery, since isotopy moves in [Formula: see text] are naturally described by elements in [Formula: see text].

On the KBSM of links in lens spaces

In this paper, the properties of the Kauffman bracket skein module (KBSM) of [Formula: see text] are investigated. Links in lens spaces are represented both through band and disk diagrams. The possibility to transform between the diagrams enables us to compute the KBSM on an interesting class of examples consisting of inequivalent links with equivalent lifts in the [Formula: see text]-sphere. The computations show that the KBSM is an essential invariant, that is, it may take different values on links with equivalent lifts. We also show how the invariant is related to the Kauffman bracket of the lift in the [Formula: see text]-sphere.

The 𝔰𝔩3 colored Jones polynomials for 2-bridge links

Kuperberg introduced web spaces for some Lie algebras which are generalizations of the Kauffman bracket skein module on a disk. We derive some formulas for [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] clasped web spaces by graphical calculus using skein theory. These formulas are colored version of skein relations, twist formulas and bubble skein expansion formulas. We calculate the [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] colored Jones polynomials of [Formula: see text]-bridge knots and links explicitly using twist formulas.

The Torelli group and the Kauffman bracket skein module

We introduce an embedding of the Torelli group of a compact connected oriented surface with non-empty connected boundary into the completed Kauffman bracket skein algebra of the surface, which gives a new construction of the first Johnson homomorphism.

Double affine Hecke algebras and generalized Jones polynomials

In this paper we propose and discuss implications of a general conjecture that there is a natural action of a rank 1 double affine Hecke algebra on the Kauffman bracket skein module of the complement of a knot $K\subset S^{3}$. We prove this in a number of nontrivial cases, including all $(2,2p+1)$ torus knots, the figure eight knot, and all 2-bridge knots (when $q=\pm 1$). As the main application of the conjecture, we construct three-variable polynomial knot invariants that specialize to the classical colored Jones polynomials introduced by Reshetikhin and Turaev. We also deduce some new properties of the classical Jones polynomials and prove that these hold for all knots (independently of the conjecture). We furthermore conjecture that the skein module of the unknot is a submodule of the skein module of an arbitrary knot. We confirm this for the same example knots, and we show that this implies that the colored Jones polynomials of $K$ satisfy an inhomogeneous recursion relation.