Holonomy perturbations and regularity for traceless SU(2) character varieties of tangles (Q1651611)

\(\text{SU}(2)\) can be identified with the group of unit quaternions and the function \(\text{Re}:\text{SU}(2)\to\mathbb R\) corresponds to one half the trace on \(\text{SU}(2)\) matrices whose point preimages are precisely the conjugacy classes in \(\text{SU}(2)\). If \(M\) is a compact 2- or 3-manifold, then the space \({\mathcal{M}}(M)=\text{Hom}(\pi_1(M),\text{SU}(2))/_{\text{conj}}\) of conjugacy classes of \(\text{SU}(2)\) representations of \(\pi_1(M)\) is called the character variety of \(M\). If \(L\subset M\) is a properly embedded codimension two submanifold, then an element of \(\pi_1(M\backslash L)\) is a meridian if it is freely homotopic in \(M\backslash L\) to the boundary of a 2-disk hitting \(L\) transversely once. A traceless representation of \(\pi_1(M\backslash L)\) is an \(\text{SU}(2)\) representation satisfying \(\text{Re}(\rho(m))=0\) for each meridian \(m\in\pi_1(M\backslash L)\). The space \(R(M,L)=\{\rho\in\text{Hom}(\pi_1(M\backslash L),\text{SU}(2))\}\) of conjugacy classes of traceless representations of \(\pi_1(M\backslash L)\) satisfying \(\text{Re}(\rho(m))=0\) is called the traceless character variety of \((M,L)\). Similarly, \(R^\natural(M,L)\) is obtained by replacing \(L\) with its connected sum with Hopf link. If the set \(\mathcal{X}=\{f:\mathbb R\to\mathbb R\}\) such that \(f\) is \(C^1\), odd, and \(2\pi\)-periodic, is the Banach space of perturbation functions, then each \(f\) defines a conjugation equivariant function \(F:\text{SU}(2)\to\text{SU}(2)\) by \(F\left(e^{\alpha Q}\right)=e^{f(\alpha)Q}\), and the perturbation data is a finite collection \(\pi=\left\{(N_i,f_i)^p_{i=1}\right\}\) of disjoint orientation preserving embeddings \(N_i:S^1\times D^2\subset\text{Int}(M)\) and corresponding \(f_i\in{\mathcal{X}}\). A \(\pi\)-perturbed representation of \(M\) is a representation \(\rho:\pi_1\left(M\backslash\left(\bigsqcup_iN_i\right)\right)\to\text{SU}(2)\) and \(R_\pi(M,L)\) and \(R^\natural_\pi(M,L)\) represent the holonomy perturbed versions of the corresponding traceless character varieties. In [Adv. Math. 54, 200--225 (1984; Zbl 0574.32032)], \textit{W. M. Goldman} studied the symplectic properties of character varieties of surfaces. When a 3-dimensional manifold \(Y\) has boundary surface \(F\), the character variety of \(Y\) gives rise to a Lagrangian submanifold in the character variety of \(F\). In this paper, the authors establish the analogous symplectic properties in the more challenging setting of the \(\text{SU}(2)\) traceless character varieties of a codimension two pair \((M,L)\), where \(M\) is a homology 3-ball, \(L\) is an \(n\)-tangle, and its boundary codimension two pair \((\partial M,\partial L)=R\left(S^2,\{a_i,b_i\}_{i=1}^n\right)\) of a \(2n\)-punctured 2-sphere is the symplectic reduction of a Hamiltonian \(n\)-torus action on the \(\text{SU}(2)\) character variety of a closed surface of genus \(n\). First, the authors show that the traceless \(\text{SU}(2)\) character variety \(R\left(S^2,\{a_i,b_i\}_{i=1}^n\right)\) of a \(2n\)-punctured 2-sphere is the symplectic reduction of a Hamiltonian \(n\)-torus action on the \(\text{SU}(2)\) character variety of a closed surface of genus \(n\), and it is stratified with a finite singular stratum and a top smooth symplectic stratum of dimension \(4n-6\). Next, they show that for generic holonomy perturbations \(\pi\), the traceless \(\text{SU}(2)\) character variety \(R_\pi(Y,L)\) of an \(n\)-stranded tangle \(L\) in a homology 3-ball \(Y\) is stratified with a finite singular stratum and top stratum a smooth manifold, and that the restriction to \(R\left(S^2,\{a_i,b_i\}_{i=1}^n\right)\) is a Lagrangian immersion which preserves the cone neighborhood structure near the singular stratum. Also, the authors show that for any generic holonomy perturbations \(\pi\) the variant \(R^\natural_\pi(Y,L)\) is a smooth compact manifold without boundary of dimension \(2n-3\), and the restriction map \(R^\natural_\pi(Y,L)\to R\left(S^2,\{a_i,b_i\}_{i=1}^n\right)\) is a Lagrangian immersion into the smooth stratum. Finally, they consider the perturbed character variety of \(F\times[0,1]\) for perturbations involving the special curves lying on different slices \(F\times\{t\}\) which determine a mapping \(\Phi:{\mathcal{M}}(F\times\{0\})\to{\mathcal{M}}(F\times\{1\})\) allowing to derive certain properties of this family of maps \(\Phi\) parameterized by perturbations. The paper concludes with a series of conjectures about Lagrangian-Floer theories involving traceless character varieties which form the motivation for the technical details in this paper.