Related papers: On the sheaf-theoretic SL(2,C) Casson-Lin invarian…
Using the theory of perverse sheaves of vanishing cycles, we define a homological invariant of knots in three-manifolds, similar to the three-manifold invariant constructed by Abouzaid and the second author. We use spaces of SL(2,C) flat…
We establish a formula for the SL(2,C) Casson invariant of spliced sums of homology spheres along knots. Along the way, we show that the SL(2,C) Casson invariant vanishes for spliced sums along knots in the 3-sphere.
In this paper, we extend the definition of the $SL_2(\Bbb C)$ Casson invariant to arbitrary knots $K$ in integral homology 3-spheres and relate it to the $m$-degree of the $\widehat{A}$-polynomial of $K$. We prove a product formula for the…
We use intersection theory techniques to define an invariant of closed 3-manifolds counting the characters of irreducible representations of the fundamental group in PSL(2,C). We note several properties of the invariant and compute the…
We introduce a unified framework for counting representations of knot groups into $SU(2)$ and $SL(2, \mathbb{R})$. For a knot $K$ in the 3-sphere, Lin and others showed that a Casson-style count of $SU(2)$ representations with fixed…
We derive a simple closed formula for the SL(2,C) Casson invariant for Seifert fibered homology 3-spheres using the correspondence between SL(2,C) character varieties and moduli spaces of parabolic Higgs bundles of rank two. These results…
A. Casson defined an intersection number invariant which can be roughly thought of as the number of conjugacy classes of irreducible representations of $\pi_1(Y)$ into $SU(2)$ counted with signs, where $Y$ is an oriented integral homology…
We derive a gauge theoretic invariant of integral homology 3-spheres which counts gauge orbits of irreducible, perturbed flat SU(3) connections with sign given by spectral flow. To compensate for the dependence of this sum on perturbations,…
We introduce the $SU(N)$ Casson-Lin invariants for links $L$ in $S^3$ with more than one component. Writing $L = \ell_1 \cup \cdots \cup \ell_n$, we require as input an $n$-tuple $(a_1,\ldots, a_n) \in {\mathbb Z}^n$ of labels, where $a_j$…
We introduce a multivariable Casson-Lin type invariant for links in $S^3$. This invariant is defined as a signed count of irreducible $\operatorname{SU}(2)$ representations of the link group with fixed meridional traces. For 2-component…
A perturbative SU(3) Casson invariant $\Lambda_{SU(3)}(X)$ for integral homology 3-spheres is defined. Besides being fully perturbative, it has nice properties: (1) $4 . \Lambda_{SU(3)}(X)$ is an integer. (2) It is preseved under…
New methods for computing a variety of gauge theoretic invariants for homology 3-spheres are developed. These invariants include the Chern-Simons invariants, the spectral flow of the odd signature operator, and the rho invariants of…
This is the first in a series of papers exploring the relationship between the Rohlin invariant and gauge theory. We discuss the Casson-type invariant of a 3-manifold with the integral homology of a torus, given by counting projectively…
Suppose Y is an integer homology 3-sphere, Taubes proved that the number of irreducible critical orbits of the perturbed Chern-Simons functional on Y, counted with signs, is equal to the algebraic intersection number of two character…
The Benard-Conway invariant of links in the 3-sphere is a Casson-Lin type invariant defined by counting irreducible SU(2) representations of the link group with fixed meridional traces. For two-component links with linking number one, the…
We prove that the fundamental group of any integer homology 3-sphere different from the 3-sphere admits irreducible representations of its fundamental group in SL(2,C). For hyperbolic integer homology spheres this comes with the definition,…
This is a survey of our recent work with Tom Mrowka on Seiberg-Witten gauge theory and index theory for manifolds with periodic ends. We explain how this work leads to a new invariant, which is related to the classical Rohlin invariant of…
The SU(3)-Casson invariant for integral homology 3-spheres as studied by Boden-Herald possesses a 'spectral flow obstruction' to being an integer valued invariant which depends only on the non-degenerate (perturbed) moduli space of flat…
We define an integer valued invariant for two-component links in S^3 by counting projective SU(2) representations of the link group having non-trivial second Stiefel-Whitney class. We show that our invariant is, up to sign, the linking…
We develop an equivariant Cerf theory for Morse functions on finite-dimensional manifolds with group actions, and adapt the technique to the infinite-dimensional setting to study the moduli space of perturbed flat $SU(n)$-connections. As a…