Blobbed topological recursion of the quartic Kontsevich model I: Loop equations and conjectures

We provide strong evidence for the conjecture that the analogue of Kontsevich's matrix Airy function, with the cubic potential $\mathrm{Tr}(\Phi^3)$ replaced by a quartic term $\mathrm{Tr}(\Phi^4)$, obeys the blobbed topological recursion of Borot and Shadrin. We identify in the quartic Kontsevich model three families of correlation functions for which we establish interwoven loop equations. One family consists of symmetric meromorphic differential forms $\omega_{g,n}$ labelled by genus and number of marked points of a complex curve. We reduce the solution of all loop equations to a straightforward but lengthy evaluation of residues. In all evaluated cases, the $\omega_{g,n}$ consist of a part with poles at ramification points which satisfies the universal formula of topological recursion, and of a part holomorphic at ramification points for which we provide an explicit residue formula.