Let $M$ be a triangulated, oriented, connected compact $3$-manifold with connected non-empty boundary. Such a manifold admits a unique decomposition into $\triangle$-prime $3$-manifolds. In this paper, we show that the adjoint Reidemeister torsion has a multiplicative property on the disk sum decomposition of compact $3$-manifolds without a corrective term.
Let $Σ_{g,n}$ denote the compact orientable surface with genus $g\geq 2$ and boundary disjoint union of $n$ circles. By using a particular pants-decomposition of $Σ_{g,n},$ we obtain a formula that computes the Reidemeister torsion of $Σ_{g,n}$ in terms of Reidemeister torsions of pairs of pants.
Given a finite simplicial complex, a unimodular representation of its fundamental group and a closed twisted cochain of odd degree, we define a twisted version of the Reidemeister torsion, extending a previous definition of V. Mathai and S. Wu. The main tool is a complex of piecewise smooth currents, defined by J. Dupont.
We study the asymptotics of the higher dimensional Reidemeister torsion for torus knot exteriors, which is related to the results by W. Müller and P. Menal-Ferrer and J. Porti on the asymptotics of the Reidemeister torsion and the hyperbolic volumes for hyperbolic 3-manifolds. We show that the sequence of log |the higher dimensional Reidemeister torsion of a torus knot exterior with SL(2N,C)-representation| / (2N)^2 converges to zero when N goes to infinity. We also give a classification for SL(2,C)-representations of torus knot groups, which induce acyclic SL(2N,C)-representations.
In a previous paper, the second author defined integer-valued functions delta_n on the first cohomology of a 3-manifold, generalizing McMullen's Alexander norm. It was shown that these functions give lower bounds on the Thurston norm. In this paper, we reformulate these invariants in terms of Reidemeister torsion over a non-commutative multivariable Laurent polynomial ring. This allows us to show that these functions are semi-norms.
For a knot K in $S^3$ and a regular representation $ρ$ of its group $G_K$ into SU(2) we construct a non abelian Reidemeister torsion on the first twisted cohomology group of the knot exterior. This non abelian Reidemeister torsion provides a volume form on the SU(2)-representation space of $G_K$. In another way, we construct according to Casson--or more precisely taking into account Lin's and Heusener's further works--a volume form on the SU(2)-representation space of $G_K$. Next, we compare these two apparently different points of view--the first by means of the Reidemeister torsion and the s…
We show a relationship between the non-acyclic Reidemeister torsion and a zero of the acyclic Reidemeister torsion for a lambda-regular SU(2) or SL(2, C)-representation of a knot group. Then we give a method to calculate the non-acyclic Reidemeister torsion of a knot exterior. We calculate a new example and investigate the behavior of the non-acyclic Reidemeister torsion associated to a 2-bridge knot and SU(2)-representations of its knot group.
We calculate the twisted Reidemeister torsion of the complement of an iterated torus knot associated with a representation of its fundamental group to the complex special linear group of degree two. We also show that the twisted Reidemeister torsions associated with various representations appear in the asymptotic expansion of the colored Jones polynomial.
In this article, we give an explicit formula to compute the non-abelian twisted sign-determined Reidemeister torsion of the exterior of a fibered knot in terms of its monodromy. As an application, we give explicit formulae for the non abelian Reidemeister torsion of torus knots and of the figure eight knot.
In this paper, we prove that the Reidemeister torsion twisted by the adjoint representation, which is considered as a 1-form, on the SU(2)-character variety of a knot exterior is invariant under mutation along a Conway sphere.
In this paper we define the adjoint Reidemeister torsion as a differential form on the character variety of a compact oriented 3-manifold with toral boundary, and prove it defines a regular volume form. Then we show that the torsion form can vanish only at singular points of the character variety. In fact, if the singular point corresponds to a reducible character, we show that the torsion does not vanish under a generic hypothesis on the Alexander polynomial, else we relate the vanishing order with the type of singularity. Finally we consider the ideal points added after compactification of t…
Given a hyperbolic knot, we prove that the Reidemeister torsion of any lift of the holonomy to SL(2,C) is invariant under mutation along a Conway sphere.
Recently twisted and higher order Alexander polynomials were used by Cochran, Harvey, Friedl--Kim and Turaev to give lower bounds on the Thurston norm. We first show how Reidemeister torsion relates to these Alexander polynomials. We then give lower bounds on the Thurston norm in terms of the Reidemeister torsion which contain and extend all the above lower bounds and give an elegant reformulation of the bounds of Cochran, Harvey and Turaev. The Reidemeister torsion approach also gives a natural approach to proving and extending certain monotonicity results of Cochran and Harvey.
These notes accompany some lectures given at the autumn school "Tresses in Pau" in October 2009. The abelian Reidemeister torsion for 3-manifolds, and its refinements by Turaev, are introduced. Some applications, including relations between the Reidemeister torsion and other classical invariants, are surveyed.
For an oriented finite volume hyperbolic 3-manifold M with a fixed spin structure η, we consider a sequence of invariants {τ_n(M; η)}. Roughly speaking, {τ_n(M; η)} is the Reidemeister torsion of M with respect to the representation given by the composition of the lift of the holonomy representation defined by η, and the n-dimensional, irreducible, complex representation of SL(2,C). In the present work, we focus on two aspects of this invariant: its asymptotic behavior and its relationship with the complex-length spectrum of the manifold. Concerning the former, we prove that for suitable spin …
We show that a PSL(2;R)-representation of a Fuchsian group induces the asymptotics of the Reidemeister torsion for the Seifert manifold corresponding to the euler class of the PSL(2;R)-representation. We also show that the limit of leading coefficient of the Reidemeister torsion is determined by the euler class of a PSL(2;R)-representation of a Fuchsian group. In particular, the leading coefficient of the Reidemeister torsion for the unit tangent bundle over a two-orbifold converges to $-χ\log2$ where $χ$ is the Euler characteristic of the two-orbifold. We also give a relation between $\mathbb…
In this paper, we prove an equality which involves Reidemeister torsion, complex volume, and Zograf infinite product for closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds.
We show some computations on representations of the fundamental group in SL(2;C) and Reidemeister torsion for a homology 3-sphere obtained by Dehn surgery along the figure-eight knot. This is the second version. We recorrected several errors in the first version.
We prove that the twisted Reidemeister torsion of a 3-manifold corresponding to a fibered class is monic and we show that it gives lower bounds on the Thurston norm. The former fixes a flawed proof in [FV10], the latter gives a quick alternative argument for the main theorem of [FK06].
This paper gives an explicit formula for the SL_2(C)-non-abelian Reidemeister torsion as defined in [Dub06] in the case of twist knots. For hyperbolic twist knots, we also prove that the non-abelian Reidemeister torsion at the holonomy representation can be expressed as a rational function evaluated at the cusp shape of the knot.
We show that the Thurston norm of any irreducible 3-manifold can be detected using twisted Reidemeister torsions corresponding to integral representations and also corresponding to representations over finite fields. In particular our result holds for all graph manifolds, these are not covered by the earlier work of the first author and Vidussi.
We extend Turaev's theory of Euler structures and torsion invariants on 3-manifolds to the case of vector fields having generic behavior on the boundary. This allows to easily define gluings of Euler structures and to develop a completely general gluing formula for Reidemeister torsion of 3-manifolds. Lastly, we describe a combinatorial presentation of Euler structures via stream-spines, as a tool to effectively compute torsion.
We show that from the asymptotic behavior of an evaluation of the colored Jones polynomial of the figure-eight knot we can extract the Chern--Simons invariant and the twisted Reidemeister torsion associated with a representation of the fundamental group of the knot complement to the two-dimensional complex special linear group.
For a 3-manifold $M$ and an acyclic $\mathit{SL}(2,\mathbb{C})$-representation $ρ$ of its fundamental group, the $\mathit{SL}(2,\mathbb{C})$-Reidemeister torsion $τ_ρ(M) \in \mathbb{C}^\times$ is defined. If there are only finitely many conjugacy classes of irreducible representations, then the Reidemeister torsions are known to be algebraic numbers. Furthermore, we prove that the Reidemeister torsions are not only algebraic numbers but also algebraic integers for most Seifert fibered spaces and infinitely many hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Also, for a knot exterior $E(K)$, we discuss the behavior o…
We consider the Reidemeister torsion associated with SL(2, C)-representations of a knot group. A bifurcation point in the SL(2, C)-character variety of a knot group is a character which is given by both an abelian SL(2, C)-representation and a non-abelian one. We show that there exist limits of the non-acyclic Reidemeister torsion at bifurcation points and the limits are expressed by using the derivation of the Alexander polynomial of the knot in this paper.
For a knot $K$ with $Δ_K(t)\doteq t^2-3t+1$ in a homology $3$-sphere, let $M$ be the result of $2/q$-surgery on $K$. We show that an appropriate assumption on the Reidemeister torsion of the universal abelian covering of $M$ implies $q=\pm 1$, if $M$ is a Seifert fibered space.
We determine the asymptotic behavior of the higher dimensional Reidemeister torsion for the graph manifolds obtained by exceptional surgeries along twist knots. We show that all irreducible SL(2;C)-representations of the graph manifold are induced by irreducible metabelian representations of the twist knot group. We also give the set of the limits of the leading coefficients in the higher dimensional Reidemeister torsion explicitly.
For a compact oriented 3-manifold with torus boundary the adjoint Reidemeister torsion is defined as a function on the $\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{C})$-character variety depending on a choice of a boundary curve. Under reasonable assumptions, it is conjectured that the adjoint torsion satisfies a certain type of vanishing identities. In this paper, we prove that the conjecture holds for all hyperbolic twist knot exteriors by using Jacobi's residue theorem.
We study an invariant of a 3-manifold which consists of Reidemeister torsion for linear representations which pass through a finite group. We show a Dehn surgery formula on this invariant and compute that of a Seifert manifold over $S^2$. As a consequence we obtain a necessary condition for a result of Dehn surgery along a knot to be Seifert fibered, which can be applied even in a case where abelian Reidemeister torsion gives no information.
For a knot $K$ with $Δ_K(t)\doteq t^2-3t+1$ in a homology $3$-sphere, let $M$ be the result of $2/q$-surgery on $K$. We show that appropriate assumptions on the Reidemeister torsion and the Casson-Walker-Lescop invariant of the universal abelian covering of $M$ imply $q=\pm 1$, if $M$ is a Seifert fibered space.
This is a survey on Reidemeister torsion for hyperbolic three-manifolds of finite volume. Torsions are viewed as topological invariants and also as functions on the variety of representations in $\operatorname{ SL}_2(\mathbb C)$. In both cases, the torsions may also be computed after composing with finite dimensional representations of $\operatorname{ SL}_2(\mathbb C)$. In addition the paper deals with the torsion of the adjoint representation as a function on the variety of $\operatorname{ PSL}_{n+1}(\mathbb C)$-characters, using that the first cohomology group with coefficients twisted by th…
As a generalization of a classical result on the Alexander polynomial for fibered knots, we show in this paper that the Reidemeister torsion associated to a certain representation detects fiberedness of knots in the three sphere.
On an odd-dimensional oriented hyperbolic manifold of finite volume with strongly acyclic coefficient systems, we derive a formula relating analytic torsion with the Reidemeister torsion of the Borel-Serre compactification of the manifold. In a companion paper, this formula is used to derive exponential growth of torsion in cohomology of arithmetic groups.
Let M be a closed 3-manifold obtained by Dehn surgery along the figure-eight knot. We give a formula of the Reisdemeisiter torsion of M for any irreducible SL(2;C)-representation. It is described as a rational expression of the trace of the image of the meridian.
We consider a claim mentioned in \cite{Witten} pp 187 about the relation between a symplectic chain complex with $ω-$compatible bases and Reidemeister Torsion of it. This is an explanation of it.
We prove for the Reidemeister-Turaev torsion of closed oriented three-manifolds some finiteness properties in the sense of Goussarov and Habiro, that is, with respect to some cut-and-paste operations which preserve the homology type of the manifolds. In general, those properties require the manifolds to come equipped with an Euler structure and a homological parametrization.
We prove that the mod Z reduction of the torsion of a rational homology 3-sphere is completely determined by three data: a certain canonical spin^c structure, the linking form and a Q/Z-valued constant c. This constant is a new topological invariant of the rational homology sphere. Experimentations with lens spaces suggest this constant may be as powerful an invariant as the torsion itself.
Given a circle-valued Morse function of a closed oriented manifold, we prove that Reidemeister torsion over a non-commutative formal Laurent polynomial ring equals the product of a certain non-commutative Lefschetz-type zeta function and the algebraic torsion of the Novikov complex over the ring. This paper gives a generalization of the result of Hutchings and Lee on abelian coefficients to the case of skew fields. As a consequence we obtain a Morse theoretical and dynamical description of the higher-order Reidemeister torsion.
Gang, Kim and Yoon have recently proposed a conjecture on a vanishing identity of adjoint Reidemeister torsions of hyperbolic 3-manifolds with torus boundary, from the viewpoint of wrapped M5-branes. In this paper, we provide infinitely many new supporting examples to this conjecture. These examples come from hyperbolic once-punctured torus bundles. We show that the vanishing identity holds for all hyperbolic once-punctured torus bundles with tunnel number one. We also show the vanishing identity does not hold for any torus knot exteriors.
For a non-compact hyperbolic 3-manifold with cusps we prove an explicit formula that relates the regularized analytic torsion associated to the even symmetric powers of the standard representation of SL_2(C) to the corresponding Reidemeister torsion. Our proof rests on an expression of the analytic torsion in terms of special values of Ruelle zeta functions as well as on recent work of Pere Menal-Ferrer and Joan Porti.
This article considers $G$-Anosov representations of a fixed closed oriented Riemann surface $Σ$ of genus at least $2$. Here, $G$ is the Lie group $\text{PSp}(2n,\mathbb{R}$), $\text{PSO}(n,n)$ or $\text{PSO}(n,n+1)$. It proves that Reidemeister torsion (R-torsion) associated to $Σ$ with coefficients in the adjoint bundle representations of such representations is well-defined. Moreover, by using symplectic chain complex method, it establishes a novel formula for R-torsion of such representations in terms of the Atiyah-Bott-Goldman symplectic form corresponding to the Lie group $G$. Furtermore…
The set $\mathit{RT}(M)$ of values of the $\mathit{SL}(2,\mathbb{C})$-Reidemeister torsion of a 3-manifold $M$ can be both finite and infinite. We prove that $\mathit{RT}(M)$ is a finite set if $M$ is the splice of two certain knots in the 3-sphere. The proof is based on an observation on the character varieties and $A$-polynomials of knots.
We study two sorts of actions on the space of conjugacy classes of irreducible $SU_2$-representations of a knot group. One of them is an involution which comes from the algebraic structure of $SU_2$ and the other is the action by the outer automorphism group of the knot group. In particular, we consider them on an 1-dimensional smooth part of the space, which is canonically oriented and metrized via a Reidemeister torsion volume form. As an application we show that the Reidemeister torsion function on the 1-dimensional subspace has symmetry about the metrization.
We establish a link between the holomorphic derivatives of Thurston's hyperbolic gluing equations on an ideally triangulated finite volume hyperbolic 3-manifold and the cohomology of the sheaf of infinitesimal isometries. Moreover, we provide a geometric reformulation of the non-abelian Reidemeister torsion corresponding to the adjoint of the monodromy representation of the hyperbolic structure. These results are then applied to the study of the `1-loop Conjecture' of Dimofte-Garoufalidis, which we generalize to arbitrary 1-cusped hyperbolic 3-manifolds. We rigorously verify the generalized co…
We give an extension of Fox's formula of the Alexander polynomial for double branched covers over the three-sphere. Our formula provides the Reidemeister torsion of a double branched cover along a knot for a non-trivial one dimensional representation by the product of two factors derived from the knot group. One of the factors is determined by the twisted Alexander polynomial and the other is determined by a rational function on the character variety. As an application, we show that these products distinguish isotopy classes of two-bridge knots up to mirror images.
Let K be a (2p,q)-torus knot and M_n is a 3-manifold obtained by 1/n-Dehn surgery along K. We consider a polynomial whose zeros are the inverses of the Reideimeister torsion of M_n for SL(2;C)-irreducible representations. Johnson gave a formula for the case of the (2,3)-torus knot under some modification and normalization. We generalize this formula by using Tchebychev polynomials.
A generalization of the volume conjecture relates the asymptotic behavior of the colored Jones polynomial of a knot to the Chern--Simons invariant and the Reidemeister torsion of the knot complement associated with a representation of the fundamental group to the special linear group of degree two over complex numbers. If the knot is hyperbolic, the representation can be regarded as a deformation of the holonomy representation that determines the complete hyperbolic structure. In this article we study a similar phenomenon when the knot is a twice-iterated torus knot. In this case, the asymptot…
Let $M_n$ be a homology 3-sphere obtained by $\frac1n$-Dehn surgery along a $(p,q)$-torus knot. We consider a polynomial $σ_{(p,q,n)}(t)$ whose zeros are the inverses of the Reideimeister torsion of $M_n$ for $\mathit{SL}(2;\mathbb{C})$-irreducible representations. We give an explicit formula of this polynomial by using Tchebychev polynomials of the first kind. Further we also give a 3-term relations of these polynomials.
The Ponzano-Regge model of three-dimensional quantum gravity is well-defined when the observables satisfy a certain condition involving the twisted cohomology. In this case, the partition function is defined in terms of the Reidemeister torsion. Some consequences for the special cases of planar graphs and knots are given.
We study lens space surgeries along two different families of 2-component links, denoted by $A_{m,n}$ and $B_{p,q}$, related with the rational homology 4-ball used in J.\ Park's (generalized) rational blow down. We determine which coefficient $r$ of the knotted component of the link yields a lens space by Dehn surgery. The link $A_{m,n}$ yields a lens space only by the known surgery with $r=mn$ and unexpectedly with $r=7$ for $(m,n)=(2,3)$. On the other hand, $B_{p,q}$ yields a lens space by infinitely many $r$. Our main tool for the proof is the Reidemeister-Turaev torsions, i.e.\ Reidemeiste…
We study a computational method of the hyperbolic Reidemeister torsion (also called in the literature the non-abelian Reidemeister torsion) induced by J. Porti for complete hyperbolic three-dimensional manifolds with cusps. The derivative of the twisted Alexander invariant for a hyperbolic knot exterior gives the hyperbolic torsion. We prove such a derivative formula of the twisted Alexander invariant for hyperbolic link exteriors like the Whitehead link exterior. We provide the framework for the derivative formula to work, which consists of assumptions on the topology of the manifold and on t…