Instanton Floer homology and the Alexander polynomial
Geometric Topology
2016-01-20 v2
Abstract
The instanton Floer homology of a knot in the three-sphere is a vector space with a canonical mod 2 grading. It carries a distinguished endomorphism of even degree,arising from the 2-dimensional homology class represented by a Seifert surface. The Floer homology decomposes as a direct sum of the generalized eigenspaces of this endomorphism. We show that the Euler characteristics of these generalized eigenspaces are the coefficients of the Alexander polynomial of the knot. Among other applications, we deduce that instanton homology detects fibered knots.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0907.4639,
title = {Instanton Floer homology and the Alexander polynomial},
author = {P. B. Kronheimer and T. S. Mrowka},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0907.4639},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
25 pages, 6 figures. Revised version, correcting errors concerning mod 2 gradings in the skein sequence