Holonomy braidings, biquandles and quantum invariants of links with \(\mathsf{SL}_2(\mathbb{C})\) flat connections (Q2310819)

This paper produces a ``Reshetikhin-Turaev type'' invariant of links and tangles from the category of modules of the non-restricted quantum group. This category has three failings, compared to the categories that appear in the original Reshetikhin-Turaev construction. First, it lacks a ribbon structure: it has only a ``holonomy braiding,'' which by work of Kashaev and Reshetikhin is the basic structure needed to produce an invariant not of plain tangles, but of tangles whose complement is equipped with a \(G\)-connection. Second, quantum dimensions in this category vanish, and so the Kashaev-Reshetikhin construction produces an invariant which vanishes on any tangle containing a closed loop. Third, in fact this category has only a ``generically defined'' holonomy braiding. This paper overcomes these failings. The main technical tool in the construction is the notion of ``biquandle.'' A ``quandle'' is an algebraic structure encoding the Reidemeister moves, and the fundamental quandle of a knot-complement is a complete invariant (whereas the fundamental group is only a complete invariant for prime knots). A typical strategy for knot invariants is to work with ``representations'' of the fundamental quandle in some other quandle. A ``biquandle'' is a sort of ``factorization'' of a quandle which allows representations to be described combinatorially. The main example worked out in the paper is the invariant determined by the category of cyclic representations of the non-restricted quantum \(\mathfrak{sl}(2)\). The authors hope that their invariant will participate in a Homotopy Quantum Field Theory, specifically a version of ``analytically extended quantum Chern-Simons theory.''