English

Shadows, ribbon surfaces, and quantum invariants

Geometric Topology 2015-03-20 v2

Abstract

Eisermann has shown that the Jones polynomial of a nn-component ribbon link LS3L\subset S^3 is divided by the Jones polynomial of the trivial nn-component link. We improve this theorem by extending its range of application from links in S3S^3 to colored knotted trivalent graphs in #g(S2×S1)\#_g(S^2\times S^1), the connected sum of g0g\geqslant 0 copies of S2×S1S^2\times S^1. We show in particular that if the Kauffman bracket of a knot in #g(S2×S1)\#_g(S^2\times S^1) has a pole in q=iq=i of order nn, the ribbon genus of the knot is at least n+12\frac {n+1}2. We construct some families of knots in #g(S2×S1)\#_g(S^2\times S^1) for which this lower bound is sharp and arbitrarily big. We prove these estimates using Turaev shadows.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1404.5983,
  title  = {Shadows, ribbon surfaces, and quantum invariants},
  author = {Alessio Carrega and Bruno Martelli},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1404.5983},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

38 pages, 18 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T03:57:28.340Z