Three-manifolds invariants and their relation with the fundamental group (Q1270160)

Recently E. Witten introduced the invariant \(I(M)\) of 3-manifolds defined by means of the Chern-Simons quantum field theory and which coincides with the Reshetikhin-Turaev invariant. Algebraic aspects of its construction, which is based on the structure of simple Lie groups, are well understood, however, the topological meaning of this invariant is still unclear. In particular, it is not known how \(I(M)\) is related to the homotopy class of \(M\). Let \(M\) be a closed connected and orientable manifold. The authors formulate the following conjecture: For nonvanishing \(I(M)\), the absolute value \(| I(M)| \) only depends on the fundamental group \(\pi_1(M)\). The object of the paper under review is the verification of the validity of the conjecture for a particular class of manifolds: the lens spaces. The authors present some arguments and numerical results supporting the conjecture. The plan of the paper is the following: after a short introduction, the expression of the invariant \(I(M)\) for the generic lens space \(L_{p/r}\) is given. It is shown that there are examples of lens spaces \(M_1\) and \(M_2\) with the same fundamental group \(\pi_1(M_1)=\pi_1(M_2)\) which are not homeomorphic but \(| I(M_1)| =| I(M_2)| \) when \(I(M)\) is the invariant associated with the group \(SU(2)\). More exactly, the authors compute \(I(L_{p/r})\) for the gauge group \(SU(2)\) and prove that when \(I(L_{p/r}) \neq 0\) its absolute value only depends on \(p\). Further, the authors present numerical computations confirming the conjecture for lens spaces when the gauge group is \(SU(3)\). The results are in agreement with the investigations of D. F. Freed, R. E. Gompf (1991) and L. C. Jeffrey (1992) devoted to this problem. The authors use the approach based on properties of 3-dimensional Chern-Simons quantum field theory and general surgery rules to compute \(I(M)\).