The Casson-Walker invariant for branched cyclic covers of \(S^3\) branched over a doubled knot (Q1371127)

The Casson invariant was defined by Casson for integer homology 3-spheres and extended by Walker to rational homology 3-spheres. Lescop gave a formula to compute these invariants for rational homology 3-spheres represented by framed links and showed that it naturally extends to an invariant for all 3-manifolds. Given a link \(L\) in \(S^3\), define the link invariant \(\lambda_n (L)\) as the Casson invariant of the \(n\)-fold cyclic branched covering of \(L\). In the present paper, using Lescop's formula and the calculation of Mullin of the Casson invariant for rational homology 3-spheres which are 2-fold branched coverings, the author obtains a formula for \(\lambda_n (L)\) when \(L\) is an \(m\)-twisted double \(D_mK\) of a knot \(K\). He shows that \(\lambda_n (D_mK)\) is determined by \(m\) and the derivative of the Jones polynomial of \(D_mK\) evaluated at \(-1\), and also by \(m\) and the coefficient of \(z^2\) of the Conway polynomial of \(K\).