A geometric construction of the Conway potential function (Q1424242): Difference between revisions

In 1970, John Conway [\textit{J. H. Conway}, Comput. Probl. abstract Algebra, Proc. Conf. Oxford 1967, 329--358 (1970; Zbl 0202.54703)] introduced a new invariant of a link \(L\) later called the Conway polynomial \(D_L(t)\). In 1981, Louis Kauffman [\textit{L. H. Kauffman}, Topology 20, 101--108 (1981; Zbl 0456.57004)] found a simple geometric construction of the Conway polynomial, namely \(D_L(t) = \det(-tA+t^{-1}A^T)\), where \(A\) is any Seifert matrix of the link \(L\) and \(A^T\) is the transpose of \(A\). In the article under review, Kauffman's construction is generalized to a geometric construction of a multivariable Conway potential function for colored links. If the link \(L\) has \(n\) colors then the potential function has \(n\) variables. For \(n=1\) this construction is the same as the construction of Kauffman, if \(n\) equals the number of components of \(L\) then gives the standard multivariable Conway potential function for links. The construction makes use of so called \(C\)-complexes [\textit{D. Cooper}, Low-dimensional topology, Proc. Conf., Bangor/Engl. 1979, Vol. 1, Lond. Math. Soc. Lect. Note Ser. 48, 51--66 (1982; Zbl 0483.57004)] which are a natural generalization of Seifert surfaces. Editorial remark: In [\textit{C. W. Davis} et al., Topology Appl. 302, Article ID 107799, 16 p. (2021; Zbl 1473.57009)] the authors show some mistakes in this paper and provide a correction.