An extension of the LMO functor (Q2520781)

The Le-Murakami-Ohtsuki invariant is a topological invariant of closed oriented \(3\)-manifolds, which is defined from the Kontsevich integral using surgery presentations in \(S^3\) [\textit{T. T. Q. Le} et al., Topology 37, No. 3, 539--574 (1998; Zbl 0897.57017)]. In the case of homology \(3\)-spheres, the LMO invariant is universal among (rational-valued) finite-type invariants. Cheptea, Habiro and the reviewer have constructed a TQFT-like extension of the LMO invariant, which they called the ``LMO functor'' [\textit{D. Cheptea} et al., Geom. Topol. 12, No. 2, 1091--1170 (2008; Zbl 1148.57017)]. This functor takes values in a certain category of ``top-substantial Jacobi diagrams'' generalizing the target of the original LMO invariant, and it is defined on the category of ``Lagrangian cobordisms''. The latter are \(3\)-dimensional cobordisms between surfaces having \textit{not more than one} boundary component, and satisfying a certain homological condition. In the paper under review, the author generalizes the construction of the LMO functor to cobordisms between surfaces which may have \textit{several} boundary components. These are now \(3\)-dimensional cobordisms with corners where the boundary components of the ``source surface'' are connected to the boundary components of the ``target surface'' by annuli. Next, the author extends to this general framework some properties of the LMO functor, such as the universality among (rational-valued) finite-type invariants and connections with Milnor invariants of string-links. Some low-degree computations on the generators of the category of Lagrangian cobordisms are also provided.