Borromean surgery formula for the Casson invariant

Jean-Baptiste Meilhan

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Borromean surgery formula for the Casson invariant

Jean-Baptiste Meilhan

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Abstract

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.

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Jean-Baptiste Meilhan. 2008-04-22. Borromean surgery formula for the Casson invariant. https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0509335

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