Traces on the skein algebra of the torus (Q2463877)

Let \(R={\mathbb Z}[t^\pm]\) be the ring of Laurent polynomials. For a surface \(F\), the Kauffman bracket skein module of \(F \times [0,1]\), denoted \(K(F)\), admits a natural multiplication which makes it an \(R\)-algebra. In the paper under discussion the author makes the following assumptions: \(F\) is the standard torus \(T^2\) and \(t\) is a complex number that is non zero and not a root of unity. Hence the skein algebra \(K(F)\) is specialized at \(t\) to form \(K_{t}(F)\), a vector space over \({\mathbb C}\). The main result of the paper is that the space of traces on \(K_{t}(F)\) is a five dimensional vector space over \({\mathbb C}\). Moreover, the author shows that the vector space \(K_{t}(T^2)\) has five distinct traces. One trace, the Yang-Mills measure, is obtained by picking off the coefficient of the empty skein. The other four traces on \(K_{t}(T^{2})\) correspond to each of the four \({\mathbb Z}/ 2{\mathbb Z}\) homology classes of the torus.