English

A survey of twisted Alexander polynomials

Geometric Topology 2010-02-05 v3

Abstract

We give a short introduction to the theory of twisted Alexander polynomials of a 3--manifold associated to a representation of its fundamental group. We summarize their formal properties and we explain their relationship to twisted Reidemeister torsion. We then give a survey of the many applications of twisted invariants to the study of topological problems. We conclude with a short summary of the theory of higher order Alexander polynomials.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0905.0591,
  title  = {A survey of twisted Alexander polynomials},
  author = {Stefan Friedl and Stefano Vidussi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0905.0591},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

42 pages, final version of the survey paper to be published by the proceedings of the conference `The Mathematics of Knots: Theory and Application' in Heidelberg in December 2008. In the final version we updated references and fixed a few typos

R2 v1 2026-06-21T12:58:19.112Z