For each oriented surface $Σ$ of genus $g$ we study a limit of quantum representations of the mapping class group arising in TQFT derived from the Kauffman bracket. We determine that these representations converge in the Fell topology to the representation of the mapping class group on $\boH(Σ)$, the space of regular functions on the $SL(2,\C)$ representation variety with its hermitian structure coming from the symplectic structure of the SU(2)-representation variety. As a corollary, we give a new proof of the asymptotic faithfulness of quantum representations.
We work in the reduced SU(N,K) modular category as constructed recently by Blanchet. We define spin type and cohomological refinements of the Turaev-Viro invariants of closed oriented 3-manifolds and give a formula relating them to Blanchet's invariants. Roberts' definition of the Turaev-Viro state sum is exploited. Furthermore, we construct refined Turaev-Viro and Reshetikhin-Turaev TQFT's and study the relationship between them.
We develop an explicit skein theoretical algorithm to compute the Alexander polynomial of a 3-manifold from a surgery presentation employing the methods used in the construction of quantum invariants of 3-manifolds. As a prerequisite we establish and prove a rather unexpected equivalence between the topological quantum field theory constructed by Frohman and Nicas using the intersection homology of U(1)-representation varieties on the one side and the combinatorially constructed Hennings-TQFT based on the quasitriangular Hopf algebra ${\cal N}=\Z/2\ltimes \ext *\R^2$ on the other side. We find…
Given a mapping class f of an oriented surface Sigma and a lagrangian lambda in the first homology of Sigma, we define an integer n_{lambda}(f). We use n_{lambda}(f) (mod 4) to describe a universal central extension of the mapping class group of Sigma as an index-four subgroup of the extension constructed from the Maslov index of triples of lagrangian subspaces in the homology of the surface. We give two descriptions of this subgroup. One is topological using surgery, the other is homological and builds on work of Turaev and work of Walker. Some applications to TQFT are discussed. They are bas…
We generalize the asymptotic faithfulness of the skein quantum $SU(2)$ representations of mapping class groups of orientable closed surfaces to skein $SU(3)$. Skein quantum representations of mapping class groups are different from the Reshetikin-Turaev ones from quantum groups or geometric quantization because they are given by different modular tensor categories. We conjecture asymptotic faithfulness holds for skein quantum $G$ representations when $G$ is a simply-connected simple Lie group. The difficulty for such a generalization lies in the lack of an explicit description of the fusion sp…
We calculate the knot invariant coming from the Teichmüller TQFT [AK1]. Specifically we calculate the knot invariant for the complement of the knot $6_1$ both in the original [AK1] and the new formulation of the Teichmüller TQFT [AK2] for the one-vertex H-triangulation of $(S^3,6_1)$. We show that the two formulations give equivalent answers. Furthermore we apply a formal stationary phase analysis and arrive at the Andersen- Kashaev volume conjecture as stated in [AK1, Conj. 1]. Furthermore we calculate the first examples of knot complements in the new formulation showing that the new formulat…
For $n$ an even number, we study representations of the mapping class group of the $n$-punctured sphere arising from $\mathrm{SU}(2)$-TQFT when all punctures are colored by the same integer $N \geq 1$. We prove that the conjecture of Andersen, Masbaum and Ueno holds for the $4$-punctured sphere for all $N \geq 2$. In the case $n \geq 6$ of punctures, we prove it for the pseudo-Anosovs satisfying a homological condition, namely they should act with a non trivial stretching factor on certain eigenspaces of homology of a $\frac{n}{2}$-fold branched cover considered by McMullen. The main idea is t…
Topological quantum field theories with gauge group $\textrm{SU}_2$ associate to each surface with marked points $Σ$ and each integer $r>0$ a vector space $V_r (Σ)$ and to each simple closed curve $γ$ in $Σ$ an Hermitian operator $T_r^γ$ acting on that space. We show that the matrix elements of the operators $T_r^γ$ have an asymptotic expansion in orders of $\frac{1}{r}$, and give a formula to compute the first two terms in terms of trace functions, generalizing results of Marché and Paul.
Let p an integer. We define a family of idempotents (and nilpotents) in the Temperley - Lieb algebras at 4p-th roots of unity which generalize the usual Jones-Wenzl idempotents. These new idempotents correspond to finite dimentional simple and projective indecomposable representations of the restricted quantum group Uqsl(2), where q is a 2p-th root of unity. In the manner of the [BHMV95] topological quantum field theorie (TQFT), they provide a canonical basis in colored skein modules to define mapping class groups representations. In the torus case, this basis allows us to obtain a partial mat…
Using geometric quantization, we represent curve operators in the TQFT of Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev with jauge group SU_2 as Toeplitz operators with symbols corresponding to trace functions. As an application, we show that eigenvectors of these operators are concentrated near the level sets of these trace functions, and obtain asymptotic estimates of pairings of such eigenvectors. This yields an asymptotic for some matrix coefficients of the image of mapping classes by quantum representations.
We prove asymptotic faithfulness for the quantum $\mathrm{Sp}(4)$ mapping class group representation. This provides the first example of asymptotic faithfulness lying outside of the $A_n$ family. The methods used are generalized from the proof of asymptotic faithfulness for skein $SU(2)_k$ mapping class group representations. In short, for any noncentral mapping class a comparison vector is found which allows for the mapping class to be detected.
In this paper, we establish the general theory of (2+1)-dimensional topological quantum field theory (in short, TQFT) with a Verlinde basis. It is a consequence that we have a Dehn surgery formula for 3-manifold invariants for this kind of TQFT's. We will show that Turaev-Viro-Ocneanu unitary TQFT's obtained from subfactors satisfy the axioms of TQFT's with Verlinde bases. Hence, in a Turaev-Viro-Ocneanu TQFT, we have a Dehn surgery formula for 3-manifolds. It turns out that this Dehn surgery formula is nothing but the formula of the Reshetikhin-Turaev invariant constructed from a tube system,…
The Kashaev-Murakami-Murakami Volume Conjecture connects the hyperbolic volume of a knot complement to the asymptotics of certain evaluations of the colored Jones polynomials of the knot. We introduce a closely related conjecture for diffeomorphisms of surfaces, backed up by numerical evidence. The conjecture involves isomorphisms between certain representations of the Kauffman bracket skein algebra of the surface, and the bulk of the article is devoted to the development of explicit methods to compute these isomorphisms. These combinatorial and algebraic techniques are exploited in two subseq…
We use quantum invariants to define an analytic family of representations for the mapping class group of a punctured surface. The representations depend on a complex number A with |A| <= 1 and act on an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space. They are unitary when A is real or imaginary, bounded when |A|<1, and only densely defined when |A| = 1 and A is not a root of unity. When A is a root of unity distinct from 1, -1, i, -i the representations are finite-dimensional and isomorphic to the "Hom" version of the well-known TQFT quantum representations. The unitary representations in the interval [-1…
