English

Flow polynomials as Feynman amplitudes and their $\alpha$-representation

Combinatorics 2017-05-12 v1

Abstract

Let GG be a connected graph; denote by τ(G)\tau(G) the set of its spanning trees. Let Fq\mathbb F_q be a finite field, s(α,G)=Tτ(G)eE(T)αes(\alpha,G)=\sum_{T\in\tau(G)} \prod_{e \in E(T)} \alpha_e, where αeFq{\alpha_e\in \mathbb F_q}. Kontsevich conjectured in 1997 that the number of nonzero values of s(α,G)s(\alpha, G) is a polynomial in qq for all graphs. This conjecture was disproved by Brosnan and Belkale. In this paper, using the standard technique of the Fourier transformation of Feynman amplitudes, we express the flow polynomial FG(q)F_G(q) in terms of the "correct" Kontsevich formula. Our formula represents FG(q)F_G(q) as a linear combination of Legendre symbols of s(α,H)s(\alpha, H) with coefficients ±1/q(V(H)1)/2\pm 1/q^{(|V(H)|-1)/2}, where HH is a contracted graph of GG depending on α(Fq)E(G)\alpha\in \left(\mathbb F^*_q\right)^{E(G)}, and V(H)|V(H)| is odd. The case q=5q=5 corresponds to the least number with which all coefficients in the linear combination are positive. This allows us to hope that the obtained result can be applied to prove the Tutte 5-flow conjecture.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1609.01120,
  title  = {Flow polynomials as Feynman amplitudes and their $\alpha$-representation},
  author = {Eduard Yu. Lerner and Andrey P. Kuptsov and Sofya A. Mukhamedjanova},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.01120},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

18 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-22T15:40:00.888Z