English

Dynamics of Twisted Alexander Invariants

Geometric Topology 2009-04-30 v3 Dynamical Systems

Abstract

The Pontryagin dual of the twisted Alexander module for a d-component link and GL(N,Z) representation is an algebraic dynamical system with an elementary description in terms of colorings of a diagram. In the case of a knot, its associated topological entropy is the logarithmic growth rate of the number of torsion elements in the twisted first-homology group of r-fold cyclic covers of the knot complement, as r goes to infinity. Total twisted representations are introduced, and their properties are studied. The twisted Alexander polynomial obtained from any nonabelian parabolic SL(2,C) representation of a 2-bridge knot group is seen to be nontrivial. The zeros of any twisted Alexander polynomial of a torus knot corresponding to a parabolic SL(2,C) representation or a finite-image permutation representation are shown to be roots of unity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0801.2118,
  title  = {Dynamics of Twisted Alexander Invariants},
  author = {Daniel S. Silver and Susan G. Williams},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0801.2118},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

This version contains corrections and improvements in exposition. 38 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:02:45.528Z