Knot invariants from four-dimensional gauge theory (Q1951048)

Introducing knot polynomials, in particular Jones polynomials, is a way to decide whether two three-dimensional knots are equivalent. Mikhail Khovanov is known for the famous homology which bears his name and spawned a new direction in knot theory. He constructed a bigraded cohomology theory of links whose Euler characteristic is the Jones polynomial. As first shown by Edward Witten in 1989, the Jones polynomial of a three-dimensional knot may be obtained by the Chern-Simons theory on the 3-sphere with gauge group \(SU(2)\). The intimate connection between quantum field theory and knot theory came as a surprise both to mathematicians and physicists. Later on it became clear that the Jones polynomials as invariants of knots have many relations to various aspects of mathematical physics, including lattice statistical mechanics, two-dimensional conformal field theory and associated representations of braid groups and, of course, the three-dimensional quantum Yang-Mills theory, with an action consisting only of the Chern-Simons term. Also, Khovanov homology can be interpreted physically in terms of topological string theory. In the present very long article Gaiotto and Witten seek to verify the argument, based on electromagnetic duality, that the Jones polynomial of a three-dimensional knot can be computed by counting the solutions of certain gauge theory equations in four dimensions. They demonstrate that there is a link between field equations and conformal blocks for representations of the Virasoro algebra in two dimensions. The claim is that this way one gets a better understanding of a wide range of topics in mathematical physics, like the Bethe ansatz for the Gaudin spin chain, or the \(M\)-theory description of BPS monopoles, or the relation between Chern-Simons theory and Virasoro conformal blocks.