Augmentations and link group representations (Q2059702)

Given a link \(L\) in the 3-sphere, and a commutative field \(k\), the \emph{framed cord algebra \(\mathrm{Cord}(L)\)} is a non-commutative algebra, which in some sense generalizes the group algebra \(k[\pi_1(S^3\setminus L)]\) of the link exterior. It was originally introduced in [\textit{L. Ng}, Geom. Topol. 9, 247--297 (2005; Zbl 1111.57011); Geom. Topol. 9, 1603--1637 (2005; Zbl 1112.57001); Duke Math. J. 141, No. 2, 365--406 (2008; Zbl 1145.57010)]. An \emph{augmentation} \(\epsilon \colon \mathrm{Cord}(L) \to k\) is just an algebra homomorphism. In this paper, the author associates to such an augmentation the \emph{augmentation representation}: it is a pair \((\rho_\epsilon, V_\epsilon)\), where \(\rho_\epsilon \colon \pi_1(S^3 \setminus L) \to \operatorname{GL}(V_\epsilon)\) is a representation of the fundamental group of the link exterior. One of the main purposes of this work is to construct rigorously this representation. The construction is performed through a braid presentation of the link, and a large part of the article is devoted to proving that this is indeed independent of the braid representing a given link. Part of the motivation of this construction lies in recovering classical objects associated to the link group, such as the character variety and the \(A\)-polynomial. Moreover, it builds up to the correspondence between augmentations and sheaves for links. To this last purpose, some further properties of the augmentation representation are proved: \emph{microlocal simpleness, vanishing} and \emph{separability}. These properties can be interpreted in terms of microlocal sheaf theory.