Mutation and \(SL(2,\mathbb C)\)-Reidemeister torsion for hyperbolic knots (Q691539)

Let \(K\) be a knot in \(S^3\), \(F\subset S^3\setminus K\) an orientable closed surface of genus \(2\), and \(\tau : F\to F\) a hyperelliptic involution (\(\tau^2=\mathrm{id}_F\)). We set \(M=S^3\setminus \mathcal{N}(K)\) where \(\mathcal{N}(K)\) is a regular neighborhood of \(K\), and \(M=M_1\cup M_2\) where \(\partial M_1=\partial M_2=F\). Then a \textit{mutation along a surface of genus \(2\) (\(=F\)) (associated with \(\tau\))} (a \textit{genus \(2\) mutation}, simply) is \(M^{\tau}=M_1\cup_{\tau} M_2\) (i.e.\ \(\partial M_2\to \partial M_1\) is \(\tau\)), and \(M^{\tau}\) is an exterior of a knot \(K^{\tau}\) in \(S^3\). Note that a Conway mutation is a composition of at most two genus \(2\) mutations, and if \(K\) is a hyperbolic knot, then \(K^{\tau}\) is also a hyperbolic knot. Let \(K\) be a hyperbolic knot, \(\mu\) an element of \(\pi_1(M)\) or \(\pi_1(M^{\tau})\) represented by a meridian of \(K\) or \(K^{\tau}\), \(\rho : \pi_1(M)\to \mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb{C})\) and \(\rho^{\tau} : \pi_1(M^{\tau})\to \mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb{C})\) lifts of the holonomies with \(\mathrm{trace}(\rho(\mu))=\mathrm{trace}(\rho^{\tau}(\mu))=\pm 2\), and \(\mathrm{tor}(M, \rho)\) and \(\mathrm{tor}(M^{\tau}, \rho^{\tau})\) the Reidemeister torsions of \(M\) and \(M^{\tau}\) related with \(\rho\) and \(\rho^{\tau}\) respectively. Then the main theorem (Theorem 1.1) is the equality \[ \mathrm{tor}(M, \rho)=\mathrm{tor}(M^{\tau}, \rho^{\tau})\in \mathbb{C}\setminus \{0\}. \] These Reidemeister torsions do not detect the difference between \(M\) and \(M^{\tau}\). On the other hand, the Reidemeister torsions related with representations to \(\mathrm{SL}(4, \mathbb{C})\) detect the Kinoshita-Terasaka knot and the Conway knot (Section 4). For the proof of the main theorem, the excision property of the cohomology groups is used.