Nahm sums, stability and the colored Jones polynomial (Q2347891)

A notion of stability for sequences of elements of the Novikov ring (the ring of power series in \(q\) with integer coefficients and bounded below exponents) -- roughly existence of coefficient-wise limits -- and correspondingly a notion of \(k\)-limit, \(k\in\mathbb{N}\), are introduced. The first main result (Theorem 1) says that for any alternating knot \(K\) the colored Jones polynomials \({\hat{J}_{K,n}(q)\in\mathbb{Z}[q]}\) form a stable sequence and its \(k\)-limits can be computed from a diagram of the link. The second main result (Theorem 2) gives the \(0\)-limit of \(\hat{J}_{K,n}(q)\) from a reduced alternating diagram of a non-split link \(K\). This limit is expressed in graph-theoretic terms, and involves a term of the form \[ \sum_{n\in C\cap\mathbb{N}^{r}}(-1)^{a\cdot n}\frac{q^{\frac{1}{2}n^{t}\cdot A\cdot n+b\cdot n}}{(q)_{n_{1}}\dots(q)_{n_{r}}}, \] called a generalized Nahm sum, where \((q)_{n}\) is the quantum factorial, \(C\) is a rational polyhedral cone in \(\mathbb{R}^{r}\), \(b,a\in\mathbb{Z}^{r}\) and \(A\) is a symmetric matrix. A similar result is also obtained for \(1\)-limit (Theorem 3). The proofs use a state sum formula for the colored Jones polynomial (Equation 14). The paper is rich with detailed treatments and related topics, such as \(q\)-holonomicity and computations.