Related papers: Integral Expressions for the Vassiliev Knot Invari…
Kauffman knot polynomial invariants are discovered in classical abelian Chern-Simons field theory. A topological invariant $t^{I\left( \mathcal{L} \right) }$ is constructed for a link $\mathcal{L}$, where $I$ is the abelian Chern-Simons…
Kronheimer and Mrowka asked whether the difference between the four-dimensional clasp number and the slice genus can be arbitrarily large. This question is answered affirmatively by studying a knot invariant derived from equivariant…
We show that (as conjectured by Lin and Wang) when a Vassiliev invariant of type $m$ is evaluated on a knot projection having $n$ crossings, the result is bounded by a constant times $n^m$. Thus the well known analogy between Vassiliev…
We investigate the Reshetikhin--Turaev invariants associated to SU(2) for the 3-manifolds M obtained by doing any rational surgery along the figure 8 knot. In particular, we express these invariants in terms of certain complex double…
We prove that the knot invariant induced by a $\Bbb Z$-homology 3-sphere invariant of order $\leq k$ in Ohtsuki's sense, where $k\geq 4$, is of order $\leq k-2$. The method developed in our computation shows that there is no $\Bbb…
Recent progress in string theory has led to a reformulation of quantum-group polynomial invariants for knots and links into new polynomial invariants whose coefficients can be understood in topological terms. We describe in detail how to…
The refined Chern-Simons theory is a one-parameter deformation of the ordinary Chern-Simons theory on Seifert manifolds. It is defined via an index of the theory on N M5 branes, where the corresponding one-parameter deformation is a natural…
We analyse the perturbative expansion of the knot invariants defined from the unitary representations of the Quantum Lorentz Group in two different ways, namely using the Kontsevich Integral and weight systems, and the $R$-matrix in the…
We construct a topological invariant of algebraic plane curves, which is in some sense an adaptation of the linking number of knot theory. This invariant is shown to be a generalization of the I-invariant of line arrangements developed by…
This short survey, which was written to accompany a minicourse at the BIRS conference "Topology in dimension 4.5", concerns invariants of knotted $2$-spheres in $S^4$, also known as $2$-knots. It covers invariants extracted from the…
In a previous paper [\AS], we used superspace techniques to prove that perturbation theory (around a classical solution with no zero modes) for Chern--Simons quantum field theory on a general $3$-manifold $M$ is finite. We conjectured (and…
Finite-order invariants of knots in arbitrary 3-manifolds (including non-orientable ones) are constructed and studied by methods of the topology of discriminant sets. Obstructions to the integrability of admissible weight systems to…
Witten introduced classical Chern-Simons theory to topology in 1989, when he defined an invariant for knots in 3-manifolds by an integral over a certain infinite-dimensional space, which up to today have not been entirely understood.…
An extension of the AGT relation from two to three dimensions begins from connecting the theory on domain wall between some two S-dual SYM models with the 3d Chern-Simons theory. The simplest kind of such a relation would presumably connect…
As it is well-known, all Vassiliev invariants of degree one of a knot $K\subset R^3$ are trivial. There are nontrivial Vassiliev invariants of degree one, when the ambient space is not $R^3$. Recently, T. Fiedler introduced such invariants…
We review the Reshetikhin-Turaev approach to construction of non-compact knot invariants involving R-matrices associated with infinite-dimensional representations, primarily those made from Faddeev's quantum dilogarithm. The corresponding…
We consider the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants or Chern-Simons partition function at or around roots of unity $q=e^{2\pi i \frac{1}{K}}$ with rational level $K=\frac{r}{s}$ where $r$ and $s$ are coprime integers. From the exact…
We discuss different invariants of knots and links that depend on a primitive root of unity. We clarify the definitions of existing invariants with the Reshetikhin-Turaev method, present the generalization of ADO invariants to…
There is a higher dimensional analogue of the perturbative Chern-Simons theory in the sense that a similar perturbative series as in 3-dimension, which is computed via configuration space integral, yields an invariant of higher dimensional…
We point out the connection between mathematical knot theory and spin glass/search problem. In particular, we present a statistical mechanical formulation of the problem of computing a knot invariant; p-colorability problem, which provides…