A rational surgery formula for the LMO invariant (Q1885530)

The LMO invariant \({\hat Z}^{LMO}(M)\) of a rational homology \(3\)-sphere \(M\) was defined in [\textit{T. Q. T. Le, J. Murakami} and \textit{T. Ohtsuki}, Topology 37, 539--574 (1998; Zbl 0897.57017)] by using integration in spaces of uni-trivalent diagrams. The LMO integration theory is not yet properly understood, as the diagrammatic counterpart of anything. Recently, two conjectures, the ``Wheels'' conjecture about the value of the Kontsevich integral of the unknot, and the ``Wheeling'' conjecture about the relationship between the two natural products on the space of uni-trivalent diagrams, made by \textit{D. Bar-Natan, S. Garoufalidis, L. Rozansky} and \textit{D. P. Thurston}, have been proved. In their paper [Sel. Math., New Ser. 10, 305--324 (2004; Zbl 1060.57010)] these conjectures and the Århus integral have been used to give an explicit formula for the value of LMO invariant \({\hat Z}^{LMO}(M)\) of a rational homology sphere \(M\) which is given by surgery on some regular integrally framed link \(L\) on \(S^3\), \(M=S_L^3\). Actually this is a properly normalized version of the integral of a certain version of the Kontsevich integral \(Z(L)\) of \(L\). In the paper under review, the authors show that if a rational homology \(3\)-sphere \(M\) is given by surgery on some rationally framed link \(L\), then its LMO invariant can be obtained by using the same formulas as in the previous case, only replacing the Kontsevich integral \(Z(L)\) (which was not defined for rationally framed links) by some extension of it. Actually the authors give a general formula for the behavior of the LMO invariant under rational surgery over links. The proof of the main result (Theorem 1.1) in the paper is performed in several steps. One of the main counterparts of the proof is that rational surgery with parameter \(p/q\) over a link component is replaced by shackling this component with a framed Hopf chain and then performing integral surgery, in which the framings \(a_1,\dots , a_k\) are related to \(p/q\) via a certain continued fraction expansion. An alternative formula for \({\hat Z}^{LMO}(M)\) is given by Theorem 6. As applications of the rational surgery formula for \({\hat Z}^{LMO}\), the authors compute the LMO invariant of arbitrary lens spaces and of certain Seifert fibered spaces. It turns out that the LMO invariant does neither separate lens spaces nor general Seifert fibered spaces but does separate Seifert fibered spaces that are integral homology spheres.