English

Basepoints in Khovanov homology and nonorientable surfaces

Geometric Topology 2026-05-12 v1

Abstract

We enhance the Khovanov TQFT using basepoint actions, over the field with two elements. Our enhanced Khovanov TQFT behaves similarly to gauge/Floer theoretic invariants of the double branched cover with opposite orientation: they both are invariant, in a certain sense, under taking the connected sum with the standard RP2\mathbb{RP}^{2} with Euler number -2, and they both vanish after taking the connected sum with the standard RP2\mathbb{RP}^{2} with Euler number 2. This invariance property answers a version of a question posed by Lipshitz and Sarkar. Furthermore, our construction establishes, as a special case, functoriality for the pointed Khovanov homology defined by Baldwin, Levine, and Sarkar.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.08457,
  title  = {Basepoints in Khovanov homology and nonorientable surfaces},
  author = {Gheehyun Nahm},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.08457},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

27 pages, 9 figures, comments welcome!