Skein theory and Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants of links in lens spaces (Q1809301)

The paper under review studies the behavior of the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev \(SU(2)\) invariants of an arbitrary link (or more generally an arbitrary skein class in the Kauffman bracket skein module) in the lens space \(L(p,q)\) as a function of \(r\), where \(r-2\) is the level of the invariant. Note that the Kauffman skein module of \(L(p,q)\) is generated by \([p/2]+1\) generators \(x_{0},x_{1},\dots,x_{[p/2]}\), where \(x_{0}\) is the empty link, \(x_{1}\) is the core of a solid torus if we regard the lens space as a union of two solid tori, and \(x_{i}\) is \(i\) parallels of \(x_{1}\) [\textit{J. Hoste} and \textit{J. H. Przytycki}, J. Knot Theory Ramifications 2, No. 3, 321-333 (1993; Zbl 0796.57005)]. We also note that if \(p=1\) (in this case \(L(p,q)\) is the three-sphere), the skein module is generated by a single element and the WRT invariant is nothing but the Jones polynomial (or the Kauffman bracket). The main result of this paper is that there are \(p\) Laurent polynomials in \(z\) such that we recover the WRT invariant if we replace \(z\) with \(\exp(2\pi\sqrt{-1}/4pr)\) and multiply by \(\sqrt{r}\). The author also shows that if \(p\equiv 0\pmod 4\) and \(c\) is odd then all the WRT invariants of \(x_{c}\) vanish even though \(x_{c}\) is non-trivial as a skein element. Contrarily, it is also proved that if \(p\) is a prime or twice an odd prime, then any skein class is determined by its WRT invariants for all levels. The same is true for \(L(9,q)\) with \(q\) prime to \(9\). The proof uses \textit{L. C. Jeffrey}'s technique [Commun. Math. Phys. 147, No. 3, 563-604 (1992; Zbl 0755.53054)] to obtain the WRT invariants of lens spaces with empty link by using a topological quantum field theoretical argument.