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 meridional holonomy recovers the signature function of $K$. For knots whose complement contains no closed essential surface, we show there is an analogous count for $SL(2, \mathbb{R})$ representations. We then prove the $SL(2, \mathbb{R})$ count is determined by the $SU(2)$ count and a single integer $h(K)$, allowing us to show the existence of various $SL(2, \mathbb{R})$ representations using only elementary topological hypotheses.
Combined with the translation extension locus of Culler-Dunfield, we use this to prove left-orderability of many 3-manifold groups obtained by cyclic branched covers and Dehn fillings on broad classes of knots. We give further applications to the existence of real parabolic representations, including a generalization of the Riley Conjecture (proved by Gordon) to alternating knots. These invariants exhibit some intriguing patterns that deserve explanation, and we include many open questions.
The close connection between $SU(2)$ and $SL(2, \mathbb{R})$ comes from viewing their representations as the real points of the appropriate $SL(2, \mathbb{C})$ character variety. While such real loci are typically highly singular at the reducible characters that are common to both $SU(2)$ and $SL(2, \mathbb{R})$, in the relevant situations, we show how to resolve these real algebraic sets into smooth manifolds. We construct these resolutions using the geometric transition $S^2 \to \mathbb{E}^2 \to \mathbb{H}^2$, studied from the perspective of projective geometry, and they allow us to pass between Casson-Lin counts of $SU(2)$ and $SL(2, \mathbb{R})$ representations unimpeded.
I present a formula for the Casson invariant of knots associated with divides. The formula is written in terms of Arnold's invariants of pieces of the divide. Various corollaries are discussed.
We prove the additivity of the Casson-Seiberg-Witten invariant of integral homology $S^1 \times S^3$ under fiber sum along embedded curves and embedded tori, which is the $4$-dimensional analogue of the additivity of the Casson invariant under connected-sum and splicing along knots.
We compute the $SU(2)$ Casson-Lin invariant for the Hopf link and determine the sign in the formula of Harper and Saveliev relating this invariant to the linking number.
We show that the SU(3) Casson invariant for spliced sums along certain torus knots equals 16 times the product of their SU(2) Casson knot invariants. The key step is a splitting formula for su(n) spectral flow for closed 3-manifolds split along a torus.
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.
Let $p$ be an odd prime and $G$ the finite cyclic group of order $p$. We use the Casson-Walker-Lescop invariant to find a necessary condition for a three-manifold to have an action of $G$ with a circle as the set of fixed points.
It is known that if any prime power branched cyclic cover of a knot in the 3-sphere is a homology sphere, then the knot has vanishing Casson-Gordon invariants. We construct infinitely many examples of (topologically) non-slice knots in the 3-sphere whose prime power branched cyclic covers are homology spheres. We show that these knots generate an infinite rank subgroup of F_(1.0)/F_(1.5) for which Casson-Gordon invariants vanish in Cochran-Orr-Teichner's filtration of the classical knot concordance group . As a corollary, it follows that Casson-Gordon invariants are not a complete set of obstr…
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 are then used to deduce the invariant for Dehn surgeries on twist knots by combining computations of the Culler-Shalen norms with the surgery formula for the SL(2,C) Casson invariant.
Gauss diagram formulas are extensively used to study Vassiliev link invariants. Now we apply this approach to invariants of 3-manifolds, considering manifolds given by surgery on framed links in the 3-sphere. We study the lowest degree case - the celebrated Casson-Walker invariant of rational homology spheres. This paper is dedicated to a detailed treatment of 2-component links; a general case will be considered in a forthcoming paper. We present simple Gauss diagram formulas for the Casson-Walker invariant. This enables us to understand/separate its dependence on the unframed link and on the …
In this paper we prove that the Casson-Gordon invariants of the connected sum of two knots split when the Alexander polynomials of the knots are coprime. As one application, for any knot K, all but finitely many algebraically slice twisted doubles of K are linearly independent in the knot concordance group.
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.
We establish the exact triangle in Seiberg-Witten-Floer theory relating the monopoloe homologies of any two closed 3-manifolds which are obtained from each other by $\pm 1$-surgery. We also show that the sum of the modified version of the Seiberg-Witten invariants for any closed rational homology 3-sphere $Y$ over all $Spin^c$ structures equals to $\frac 12 |H_1(Y, \Z)| λ(Y)$ where $λ(Y)$ is the Casson-Walker invariant.
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 $\widehat{A}$-polynomial of the connected sum $K_1 \# K_2$ of two knots in $S^3$ and deduce additivity of $SL_2(\Bbb C)$ Casson knot invariant under connected sum for a large class of knots in $S^3$. We also present an example of a nontrivial knot $K$ in $S^3$ with trivial $\widehat{A}$-polynomial and trivial $SL_2(\Bbb C)$ Casson knot invariant, showing tha…
We give a rational surgery formula for the Casson-Walker invariant of a 2-component link in $S^{3}$ which is a generalization of Matveev-Polyak's formula. As application, we give more examples of non-hyperbolic L-space $M$ such that knots in $M$ are determined by their complements. We also apply the result for the cosmetic crossing conjecture.
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 invariant for certain Seifert fibered spaces and for some Dehn surgeries on twist knots. We discuss the relationship between this invariant and the SL(2,C)-invariant.
Given a rational homology sphere which bounds rational homology balls, we investigate the complexity of these balls as measured by the number of 1-handles in a handle decomposition. We use Casson-Gordon invariants to obtain lower bounds which also lead to lower bounds on the fusion number of ribbon knots. We use Levine-Tristram signatures to compute these bounds and produce explicit examples.
It is known that every oriented integral homology 3-sphere can be obtained from S^3 by a finite sequence of Borromean surgeries. We give an explicit formula for the variation of the Casson invariant under such a surgery move. The formula involves simple classical invariants, namely the framing, linking number and Milnor's triple linking number. A more general statement, for n independent Borromean surgeries, is also provided, which involves an additional cubic expression in some linking numbers of the surgery link.
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 number of the link. Our construction generalizes that of X.-S. Lin who defined a similar invariant for knots in S^3; his invariant equals half the knot signature.
We prove a surgery formula of the Casson-Seiberg-Witten invariant of integral homology $S^1 \times S^3$ along an embedded torus, which could either be regarded as an extension of the product formula for Seiberg-Witten invariants or a manifestation of the surgery exact triangle in $4$-dimensional Seiberg-Witten theory of homology $S^1 \times S^3$. As an application, we compute this invariant for mapping tori of $3$-manifolds under diffeomorphisms of finite order and fixed-point set being a simple closed curve. This computation generalizes the result of Lin-Ruberman-Saveliev.
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 links with linking number one, the invariant is shown to be a sum of multivariable signatures. We also obtain some results concerning deformations of $\operatorname{SU}(2)$ representations of link groups.
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 $a_j$ is associated with $\ell_j$. The $SU(N)$ Casson-Lin invariant, denoted $h_{N,a}(L)$, gives an algebraic count of certain projective $SU(N)$ representations of the link group $π_1(S^3 \smallsetminus L)$, and the family $h_{N,a}$ of link invariants gives a natural extension of the $SU(2)$ Casson-Lin invariant, which was defined for knots by X.-S. Lin and for 2…
In this paper, we prove a conjecture of Friedl and Powell that their Casson-Gordon type invariant of 2-component link with linking number one is actually an obstruction to being height 3.5 Whitney tower/grope concordant to the Hopf Link. The proof employs the notion of solvable cobordism of 3-manifolds with boundary, which was introduced by Cha. We also prove that the Blanchfield form and the Alexander polynomial of links in $S^3$ give obstructions to height 3 Whitney tower/grope concordance. This generalizes the results of Hillman and Kawauchi.
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 homology 3-spheres and to the Furuta-Ohta invariant originating in Yang-Mills gauge theory. We give some new calculations of our invariant for 4-dimensional mapping tori.
We investigate the behavior of the SL(2,C) Casson invariant for 3-manifolds obtained by Dehn surgery along two-bridge knots. Using the results of Hatcher and Thurston, and also results of Ohtsuki, we outline how to compute the Culler--Shalen seminorms, and we illustrate this approach by providing explicit computations for double twist knots. We then apply the surgery formula of Curtis to deduce the SL(2,C) Casson invariant for the 3-manifolds obtained by p/q-Dehn surgery on such knots. These results are applied to prove nontriviality of the SL(2,C) Casson invariant for nearly all 3-manifolds o…
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.
This article surveys our ongoing project about the relationship between invariants extending the classical Rohlin invariant of homology spheres and those coming from 4-dimensional (Yang-Mills) gauge theory. The main conjecture towards which this project is directed is that the Rohlin invariant and the gauge theoretic invariant coincide for a homology $S^1\times S^3$. We discuss the implications of this conjecture for some classical problems in low-dimensional topology, and progress we have made towards proving the conjecture.
We consider the cosmetic surgery problem for two-bridge knots in the 3-sphere. It is seen that all the two-bridge knots at most 9 crossings other than $9_{27} = S(49,19)=C[2,2,-2,2,2,-2]$ admits no purely cosmetic surgery pairs. Then we show that any two-bridge knot of the Conway form $[2x,2,-2x,2x,2,-2x]$ with $x \ge 1$ admits no cosmetic surgery pairs yielding homology 3-spheres, where $9_{27}$ appears for $x=1$. Our advantage to prove this is using the $SL(2,\mathbb{C})$ Casson invariant.
We study chirally cosmetic surgeries, that is, a pair of Dehn surgeries on a knot producing homeomorphic 3-manifolds with opposite orientations. Several constraints on knots and surgery slopes to admit such surgeries are given. Our main ingredients are the original and the $SL(2,\mathbb{C})$ version of Casson invariants. As applications, we give a complete classification of chirally cosmetic surgeries on alternating knots of genus one.
We give a useful classification of the metabelian unitary representations of pi_1(M_K), where M_K is the result of zero-surgery along a knot K in S^3. We show that certain eta invariants associated to metabelian representations pi_1(M_K) --> U(k) vanish for slice knots and that even more eta invariants vanish for ribbon knots and doubly slice knots. We show that our vanishing results contain the Casson-Gordon sliceness obstruction. In many cases eta invariants can be easily computed for satellite knots. We use this to study the relation between the eta invariant sliceness obstruction, the eta-…
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 varieties associated with Heegaard splittings when the structure group is SU(2). Taubes' result established a relationship between gauge theory and the Casson invariant. This article proves an analogous identification result for SU(n) generalized Casson invariants. As a special case, we show that the SU(3) Casson invariant of Boden-Herald can be equivalently calcu…
Formulas previously presented for the Casson-Walker invariant are generalized to Lescop's extension. These formulas in terms of linking numbers and surgery coefficients compute the change in Lescop's invariant under crossing changes in a framed link presenting a 3-manifold. This leads us to revisit an old formula for a coefficient of the Conway polynomial. Finally we compute Lescop's invariant of several lens spaces and deduce some values for Dedekind sums.
Casson-type invariants emerging from Donaldson theory over certain negative definite 4-manifolds were recently suggested by Andrei Teleman. These are defined by a count of a zero-dimensional moduli space of flat instantons. Motivated by the cobordism program of proving Witten's conjecture, we use a moduli space of PU(2) Seiberg-Witten monopoles to exhibit an oriented one-dimensional cobordism of the instanton moduli space to the empty space. The Casson-type invariant must therefore vanish.
We study the Vassiliev knot invariant v_2 of degree 2. We present it via the degrees of maps of various configuration spaces related to a knot to products of spheres. This gives rise to numerous geometrical and combinatorial formulas for this invariant.
We define an integer valued invariant of homology spheres using the methods of SU(3) gauge theory and study its behavior under orientation reversal and connected sum.
We consider an analogue of well-known Casson knot invariant for knotoids. We start with a direct analogue of the classical construction which gives two different integer-valued knotoid invariants and then focus on its homology extension. Value of the extension is a formal sum of subgroups of the first homology group $H_1(Σ)$ where $Σ$ is an oriented surface with (maybe) non-empty boundary in which knotoid diagrams lie. To make the extension informative for spherical knotoids it is sufficient to transform an initial knotoid diagram in $S^2$ into a knotoid diagram in the annulus by removing smal…
We prove that the ($τ$-weighted, sheaf-theoretic) SL(2,C) Casson-Lin invariant introduced by Manolescu and the first author in [CM19] is generically independent of the parameter $τ$ and additive under connected sums of knots in integral homology 3-spheres. This addresses two questions asked in [CM19]. Our arguments involve a mix of topology, microlocal analysis and algebraic geometry, and rely crucially on the fact that the SL(2,C) Casson-Lin invariant admits an alternative interpretation via the theory of Behrend functions.
For a knot $K$ in a homology $3$-sphere $Σ$, let $M$ be the result of $2/q$-surgery on $K$, and let $X$ be the universal abelian covering of $M$. Our first theorem is that if the first homology of $X$ is finite cyclic and $M$ is a Seifert fibered space with $N\ge 3$ singular fibers, then $N\ge 4$ if and only if the first homology of the universal abelian covering of $X$ is infinite. Our second theorem is that under an appropriate assumption on the Alexander polynomial of $K$, if $M$ is a Seifert fibered space, then $q=\pm 1$ (i.e.\ integral surgery).
A perturbative SU(3) Casson invariant $Λ_{SU(3)}(X)$ for integral homology 3-spheres is defined. Besides being fully perturbative, it has nice properties: (1) $4 . Λ_{SU(3)}(X)$ is an integer. (2) It is preseved under orientation change. (3) A connected sum formula holds. Explicit calculations of the invariant for $1/k$ surgery on $(2,q)$ torus knots are made and compared with a different generalization of Casson's invariant to SU(3) by Boden and Herald. For those cases computed, the invariant defined here is a quadratic polynomial in k for k>0 and a quadratic polynomial for k<0.
We use Heegaard decompositions and the theta divisor on a Riemannian surface to define a three-manifold invariant for rational homology three-spheres. This invariant is defined on the set of $Spin^c$ structures $$ {\hat θ}\colon Spin^c(Y)\longrightarrow Q. $$ In the first part of the paper, we give the definition of the invariant (which builds on the theory developed in the article, "The theta divisor and three-manifold invariants"). In the second part, we establish a relationship between this invariant and the Casson-Walker invariant.
We derive formulae which lend themselves to TQFT interpretations of the Milnor torsion, the Lescop invariant, the Casson invariant, and the Casson-Morita cocyle of a 3-manifold, and, furthermore, relate them to the Reshetikhin-Turaev theory.
Let R be a compact oriented surface of genus g with one boundary component. Homology cylinders over R form a monoid IC into which the Torelli group I of R embeds by the mapping cylinder construction. Two homology cylinders M and M' are said to be Y_k-equivalent if M' is obtained from M by "twisting" an arbitrary surface S in M with a homeomorphim belonging to the k-th term of the lower central series of the Torelli group of S. The J_k-equivalence relation on IC is defined in a similar way using the k-th term of the Johnson filtration. In this paper, we characterize the Y_3-equivalence with thr…
Let Z^{LMO} be the 3-manifold invariant of [LMO]. It is shown that Z^{LMO}(M)=1, if the first Betti number of M, b_{1}(M), is greater than 3. If b_{1}(M)=3, then Z^{LMO}(M) is completely determined by the cohomology ring of M. A relation of Z^{LMO} with the Rozansky-Witten invariants Z_{X}^{RW}[M] is established at a physical level of rigour. We show that Z_{X}^{RW}[M] satisfies appropriate connected sum properties suggesting that the generalized Casson invariant ought to be computable from the LMO invariant.
We develop techniques for computing the integer valued SU(3) Casson invariant. Our method involves resolving the singularities in the flat moduli space using a twisting perturbation and analyzing its effect on the topology of the perturbed flat moduli space. These techniques, together with Bott-Morse theory and the splitting principle for spectral flow, are applied to calculate the invariant for all Brieskorn homology spheres.
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, the invariant includes contributions from the reducible, perturbed flat orbits. Our formula for the correction term generalizes that given by Walker in his extension of Casson's SU(2) invariant to rational homology 3-spheres.
We bound the value of the Casson invariant of any integral homology 3-sphere $M$ by a constant times the distance-squared to the identity, measured in any word metric on the Torelli group $\T$, of the element of $\T$ associated to any Heegaard splitting of $M$. We construct examples which show this bound is asymptotically sharp.
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 SU(3)-connections. This obstruction is the non-trivial spectral flow of a family of twisted signature operators in 3-dimensions. The parallel U(2)-Seiberg-Witten construction also has an obstruction but from the non-trivial spectral flow of a family of twisted Dirac operators. By taking the SU(3)-flat and U(2)-Seiberg-Witten equations simultaneously the obstruc…
In 1985 lectures at MSRI, A. Casson introduced an interesting integer valued invariant for any oriented integral homology 3-sphere Y via beautiful constructions on representation spaces (see [1] for an exposition). The Casson invariant λ(Y) is roughly defined by measuring the oriented number of irreducible representations of the fundamental group π_1(Y) in SU(2). Such an invariant generalized the Rohlin invariant and gives surprising corollaries in low dimensional topology.
Let K and K' be 2-knots. Suppose that K and K' are ribbon-move equivalent. Then the Farber-Levine pairing for K is equivalent to that for K' and the (Z-)torsion part of the first Alexander module of $K$ is isomorphic to that of K' as Z[Z] modules. Let K be a 2-knot which is ribbon-move equivalent to the trivial knot. Then the Atiyah-Patodi-Singer-Casson-Gordon-Ruberman Q/Z-valued \widetildeη-invariants of K for Z_d is zero. (d is a natural number. d>2.).
The goal of this paper is to give a new proof of a theorem of Meng and Taubes that identifies the Seiberg-Witten invariants of 3-manifolds with Milnor torsion. The point of view here will be that of topological quantum field theory. In particular, we relate the Seiberg-Witten equations on a 3-manifold with the Abelian vortex equations on a Riemann surface. These techniques also give a new proof of the surgery formula for the Casson invariant, interpreted as an invariant of a homology S^2 x S^1.
