Quandle cocycles from invariant theory (Q2437483)

For a group \(G\) and a right \(G\)-module \(M\), one has the structure of a quandle on \(X=G \times M\) by defining a binary operation \((a,g)\triangleleft(b,h) = ((a-b)h + b, h^{-1}gh)\), which is understood as the associated quandle of a structure of a \(G\)-family of quandles on \(M\), a family of quandle operations on \(M\) indexed by \(G\) [\textit{A. Ishii, M. Iwakiri, Y. Jang} and \textit{K. Oshiro}, ``A \(G\)-family of quandles and handlebody-knots'', \url{arXiv:1205.1855}]. Let \(C_{*}^{gr}(M;\mathbb{Z})\) be the non-homogeneous group chain complex of \(M\), where \(M\) is simply regarded as an abelian group. The \(G\)-action on \(M\) induces an action on \(C_{*}^{gr}(M;\mathbb{Z})\), and let \(C_{*}^{gr}(M;\mathbb{Z})_{G}\) be the \(G\)-coinvariants. The author constructs a chain map from a non-homogenous coordinate version of the rack complex of \(X\) to \(C_{*}^{gr}(M;\mathbb{Z})_{G}\). Dually, this provides a way to obtain quandle cocycles from \(G\)-invariant group cocycles, and in particular, yields a cocycle of a \(G\)-family of quandles. Since group (co)invariant (co)cycles have been much studied and are easier to treat than quandle cocycles, the author succeeds in constructing various non trivial quandle cocycles explicitly.