The Alexander polynomial and finite type 3-manifold invariants

Using elementary counting methods, we calculate a universal perturbative invariant (also known as the LMO invariant) of a 3-manifold M, satisfying , in terms of the Alexander polynomial of M. We show that +1 surgery on a knot in the 3-sphere induces an injective map from finite type invariants of integral homology 3-spheres to finite type invariants of knots. We also show that weight systems of degree 2m on knots, obtained by applying finite type 3m invariants of integral homology 3-spheres, lie in the algebra of Alexander-Conway weight systems, thus answering the questions raised in [Ga]. Received: 27 April 1998 / in final form: 8 August 1999     

Invariant sets and measures of nonexpansive group automorphisms

We write a formula for the LMO invariant of a rational homology sphere presented as a rational surgery on a link inS ³. Our main tool is a careful use of the Århus integral and the (now proven) “Wheels” and “Wheeling” conjectures of B-N, Garoufalidis, Rozansky and Thurston. As steps, side benefits and asides we give explicit formulas for the values of the Kontsevich integral on the Hopf link and on Hopf chains, and for the LMO invariant of lens spaces and Seifert fibered spaces. We find that the LMO invariant does not separate lens spaces, is far from separating general Seifert fibered spaces, but does separate Seifert fibered spaces which are integral homology spheres.     

On the Casson invariant of homology 3-spheres of Mazur type

We compute the Casson invariant for some integral homology 3-spheres. We also show that for every integer n, there exists an integral homology 3-sphere of Mazur type with the Casson invariant 2n.     

Reidemeister torsion for linear representations and Seifert surgery on knots

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 S². 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.     

On ohtsuki’s invariants of integral homology 3-spheres

We provide some more explicit formulae to facilitate the computation of Ohtsuki’s rational invariants λ _n of integral homology 3-spheres extracted from Reshetikhin-TuraevSU(2) quantum invariants. Several interesting consequences will follow from our computation of λ₂. One of them says that λ₂ is always an integer divisible by 3. It seems interesting to compare this result with the fact shown by Murakami that λ₁ is 6 times the Casson invariant. Other consequences include some general criteria for distinguishing homology 3-spheres obtained from surgery on knots by using the Jones polynomial. The first author is supported in part by NSF and the second author is supported by an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship.     

On denominators of the Kontsevich integral and the universal perturbative invariant of 3-manifolds

 The integrality of the Kontsevich integral and perturbative invariants is discussed. It is shown that the denominator of the degree n part of the Kontsevich integral of any knot or link is a divisor of (2!3!…n!)⁴(n+1)!. We prove this by establishing the existence of a Drinfeld's associator in the space of chord diagrams with special denominators. We also show that the denominator of the degree n part of the universal perturbative invariant of homology 3-spheres is not divisible by any prime greater than 2n+1. Oblatum 20-VI-1997 & 28-IV-1998 / Published online: 12 November 1998     

Milnor link invariants and quantum 3-manifold invariants

Let be the 3-manifold invariant of Le, Murakami and Ohtsuki. We show that , where denotes terms of degree , if M is a homology 3-sphere obtained from by surgery on an n-component Brunnian link whose Milnor -invariants of length vanish.?We prove a realization theorem which is a partial converse to the above theorem.?Using the Milnor filtration on links, we define a new bifiltration on the vector space with basis the set of oriented diffeomorphism classes of homology 3-spheres. This includes the Milnor level 2 filtration defined by Ohtsuki. We show that the Milnor level 2 and level 3 filtrations coincide after reindexing. Received: October 23, 1998.     

A case of the 3-dimensional problem of Apollonius

Summary Inn-dimensions the problem of Apollonius is to determine the (n–1)-spheres tangent ton+1 given (n–1)-spheres. In case no two of the given (n–1)-spheres intersect and no three have the property that one separates the other two, the expected number of solutions is 2 ⁿ⁺¹. Whenn=2 this special problem does indeed always have 8 solutions, but for higher dimensions it turns out that the number of solutions becomes dependent on the relative size and location of the given (n–1)-spheres. We describe in detail the dependence of the number of solutions in the case of the 3-dimensional problem of Apollonius on the 6 inversively invariant parameters that describe configurations of 4 given spheres. We find that the number of solutions, if finite, can be any integer from 0 to 16 and, if infinite, can be a one-, two- or three-fold infinity where the stated multiplicity refers to the number of one-parameter families of solutions that are present.     

On finite groups acting on ℤ<Subscript>2</Subscript>-homology 3-spheres

We consider finite groups G admitting orientation-preserving actions on homology 3-spheres (arbitrary, i.e. not necessarily free actions), concentrating on the case of nonsolvable groups. It is known that every finite group G admits actions on rational homology 3-spheres (and even free actions). On the other hand, the class of groups admitting actions on integer homology 3-spheres is very restricted (and close to the class of finite subgroups of the orthogonal group SO(4), acting on the 3-sphere). In the present paper, we consider the intermediate case of ₂-homology 3-spheres (i.e., with the ₂-homology of the 3-sphere where ₂ denote the integers mod two; we note that these occur much more frequently in 3-dimensional topology than the integer ones). Our main result is a list of finite nonsolvable groups G which are the candidates for orientation-preserving actions on ₂-homology 3-spheres. From this we deduce a corresponding list for the case of integer homology 3-spheres. In the integer case, the groups of the list are closely related to the dodecahedral group or the binary dodecahedral group most of these groups are subgroups of the orthogonal group SO(4) and hence admit actions on S³. Roughly, in the case of ₂-homology 3-spheres the groups PSL(2,5) and SL(2,5) get replaced by the groups PSL(2,q) and SL(2,q), for an arbitrary odd prime power q. We have many examples of actions of the groups PSL(2,q) and SL(2,q) on ₂-homology 3-spheres, for various small values of q (constructed as regular coverings of suitable hyperbolic 3-orbifolds and 3-manifolds, using computer-supported methods to calculate the homology of the coverings). We think that all of them occur but have no method to prove this at present (in particular, the exact classification of the finite nonsolvable groups admitting actions on ₂-homology 3-spheres remains still open).     

Seiberg–Witten and Casson–Walker Invariants for Rational Homology 3-Spheres

We consider a modified version of the Seiberg–Witten invariants for rational homology 3-spheres, obtained by adding to the original invariants a correction term which is a combination of -invariants. We show that these modified invariants are topological invariants. We prove that an averaged version of these modified invariants equals the Casson–Walker invariant. In particular, this result proves an averaged version of a conjecture of Ozsváth and Szabó on the equivalence between their invariant and the Seiberg–Witten invariant of rational homology 3-spheres.     

Finite type 3-manifold invariants and the structure of the Torelli group. I

Using the recently developed theory of finite type invariants of integral homology 3-spheres we study the structure of the Torelli group of a closed surface. Explicitly, we construct (a) natural cocycles of the Torelli group (with coefficients in a space of trivalent graphs) and cohomology classes of the abelianized Torelli group; (b) group homomorphisms that detect (rationally) the nontriviality of the lower central series of the Torelli group. Our results are motivated by the appearance of trivalent graphs in topology and in representation theory and the dual role played by the Casson invariant in the theory of finite type invariants of integral homology 3-spheres and in Morita's study [Mo2, Mo3] of the structure of the Torelli group. Our results generalize those of S. Morita [Mo2, Mo3] and complement the recent calculation, due to R. Hain [Ha2], of the I-adic completion of the rational group ring of the Torelli group. We also give analogous results for two other subgroups of the mapping class group. Oblatum 19-IX-1996 & 13-V-1997     

On the intersection forms of spin four-manifolds with boundary

We prove Furuta-type bounds for the intersection forms of spin cobordisms between homology 3-spheres. The bounds are in terms of a new numerical invariant of homology spheres, obtained from \(\mathrm{Pin }(2)\) -equivariant Seiberg-Witten Floer K-theory. In the process we introduce the notion of a Floer \(K_G\) -split homology sphere; this concept may be useful in an approach to the 11/8 conjecture.     

Complexity and T ‐invariant of Abelian and Milnor groups,and complexity of 3‐manifolds

We investigate the notion of complexity for finitely presented groups and the related notion of complexity for three‐dimensional manifolds. We give two‐sided estimates on the complexity of all the Milnor groups (the finite groups with free action on S³), as well as for all finite Abelian groups. The ideas developed in the process also allow to construct two‐sided bounds for the values of the so‐called T ‐invariant (introduced by Delzant) for the above groups, and to estimate from below the value of T ‐invariant for an arbitrary finitely presented group. Using the results of this paper and of previous ones, we then describe an infinite collection of Seifert threemanifolds for which we can asymptotically determine the complexity in an exact fashion up to linear functions. We also provide similar estimates for the complexity of several infinite families of Milnor groups. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

The K-Theory of Heegaard-Type Quantum 3-Spheres

We use a Heegaard splitting of the topological 3-sphere as a guiding principle to construct a family of its noncommutative deformations. The main technical point is an identification of the universal C^*-algebras defining our quantum 3-spheres with an appropriate fiber product of crossed-product C^*-algebras. Then we employ this result to show that the K-groups of our family of noncommutative 3-spheres coincide with their classical counterparts. Dedicated to the memory of Olaf Richter An erratum to this article is available at .     

Mutative hyperbolic homology 3-spheres with the same Floer homology

We construct a large class of finitely many hyperbolic homology 3-spheres making the following invariants equal, simultaneously, the integral homology, the quantum SU(2) invariants, the hyperbolic volume, the hyperbolic isometry group, the -invariant, the Chern-Simons invariant, and the Floer homology.     

A unified quantum <Emphasis Type="Italic">SO</Emphasis>(3) invariant for rational homology 3-spheres

Given a rational homology 3-sphere M with |H ₁(M,ℤ)|=b and a link L inside M, colored by odd numbers, we construct a unified invariant I _M,L belonging to a modification of the Habiro ring where b is inverted. Our unified invariant dominates the whole set of the SO(3) Witten–Reshetikhin–Turaev invariants of the pair (M,L). If b=1 and L=∅, I _M coincides with Habiro’s invariant of integral homology 3-spheres. For b>1, the unified invariant defined by the third author is determined by I _M . Important applications are the new Ohtsuki series (perturbative expansions of I _M ) dominating quantum SO(3) invariants at roots of unity whose order is not a power of a prime. These series are not known to be determined by the LMO invariant.     

Three-manifold invariants associated with restricted quantum groups

We show a simple relation between Witten–Reshetikhin–Turaev SU(2) invariant and the Hennings invariant associated with the restricted quantum ${{\mathfrak{sl}_{2}}}$ . These invariants are defined in very different methods: the former uses the representation theory of quantum ${{\mathfrak{sl}_{2}}}$ while the latter uses the integral of the Hopf algebra. But they turn out to be the same for most rational homology 3-spheres up to a sign. This relation can be used to prove the integrality of the former invariant.     

Counterexamples to Kauffman's conjectures on slice knots

In the late 1960s Jerome Levine classified the odd high-dimensional knot concordance groups in terms of a linking matrix associated to an arbitrary bounding manifold for the knot. His proof fails for classical knots in S³$S^3$. Yet this philosophy has remained the only known strategy for understanding the classical knot concordance group. We show that this strategy is fundamentally flawed. Specifically, in 1982, in support of Levine's philosophy, Louis Kauffman conjectured that if a knot in S³$S^3$ is a slice knot then on any Seifert surface for that knot there exists a homologically essential simple closed curve of self-linking zero which is itself a slice knot, or at least has Arf invariant zero. Since that time, considerable evidence has been amassed in support of this conjecture. In particular, many invariants that obstruct a knot from being a slice knot have been explicitly expressed in terms of invariants of such curves on its Seifert surface. We give counterexamples to Kauffman's conjecture, that is, we exhibit (smoothly) slice knots that admit (unique minimal genus) Seifert surfaces on which every homologically essential simple closed curve of self-linking zero has non-zero Arf invariant and non-zero signatures.     

Hyperbolic knots spanning accidental Seifert surfaces of arbitrarily high genus

A method for constructing hyperbolic knots each of which bounds accidental incompressible Seifert surfaces of arbitrarily high genus is given. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000):57N10, 57M25.The author was supported in part by Research Fellowships of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists.