The universal Vassiliev invariant for the Lie superalgebra \(gl(1|1)\) (Q1357446)

The universal Vassiliev invariant for the Lie superalgebra \(gl(1|1)\) is explicitly constructed, by exhibiting a recurrence relation enabling the images of all chord diagrams to be computed in terms of the images of those with fewer chords. As is stated in the introduction, the set of all Vassiliev invariants of knots has a natural filtration, whose adjacent quotients, order \(n\) Vassiliev invariants up to lower order, may be considered as sets of combinatorial objects called weight systems, namely linear functionals on the set of chord diagrams with \(n\) chords, satisfying certain relations (such as the four term relation). Examples of weight systems (with values in the field of scalars) are generated by Lie algebras, when supplied with an invariant inner product and a representation [\textit{D. Bar-Natan}, Topology 34, No.~2, 423--472 (1995; Zbl 0898.57001); \textit{M. Kontsevich}, Adv. Sov. Math. 16(2), 137--150 (1993; Zbl 0839.57006)]. Universal weight systems are algebra-valued weight systems defined by a given Lie algebra, which contain all the weight systems associated with specific representations, as evaluations of traces. For self-dual Yang-Baxter Lie algebras, \textit{A. Vaintrob} [Math. Res. Lett. 1, No. 5, 579--595 (1994; Zbl 0853.57008)] produced an analogous construction. The first computation of a universal weight system was for \(sl_2\) [\textit{S. V. Chmutov} and \textit{A. N. Varchenko}, Topology 36, No. 1, 153--178 (1997; Zbl 0876.57013)]. The current paper is the first computation for a non-trivial superalgebra. The universal weight system takes values in polynomials in two parameters \(c\) and \(y\) (corresponding to the images of the two \(gl(1|1)\)-invariant tensors of order 2). It is also shown that the connection between \(gl(1|1)\) and the Alexander-Conway polynomial noted in [\textit{L. Rozansky} and \textit{H. Saleur}, J. Geom. Phys. 13, No. 2, 105--123 (1994; Zbl 0810.57018)], is evident here, with the special values \((c,y)=(0,1)\) reducing the universal \(gl(1|1)\) weight system to the weight system for the Alexander-Conway polynomial. This paper is well-written and fairly self-contained, containing all the basics on the structure of cyclic \(gl(1|1)\) modules which are used in the paper. The paper closes with a table of images of all indecomposable chord diagrams of orders 4 and 5.