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arXiv · 1501.00123

The degree of the colored HOMFLY polynomial

Abstract

The colored HOMLFY polynomial is an important knot invariant depending on two variables $a$ and $q$. We give bounds on the degree in both $a$ and $q$ generalizing Morton's bounds \cite{Mo86} for the ordinary HOMFLY polynomial. Our bounds suggest that the degree detects certain incompressible surfaces in the knot complement and perhaps more generally features of the $SL(N)$ character varieties of the knot group. We formulate a precise conjecture along these lines generalizing the slope conjecture of Garoufalidis \cite{Ga11}. We prove our conjecture for all positive knots. Our technique is a reformulation of the MOY state sum \cite{MOY98} using $q$-analogues of Ehrhart polynomials. As a direct application we explicitly compute the $r$ coefficients of $r$-colored HOMFLY polynomial of any positive braid.

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BibTeXRIS

Roland van der Veen. 2014-12-31. The degree of the colored HOMFLY polynomial. https://arxiv.org/abs/1501.00123

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