Motive of the \(\mathrm{SL}_4\)-character variety of torus knots (Q2675091)

Let \(\Gamma\) be a finitely generated group and \(G\) an algebraic group over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. The space \(R(\Gamma,G)\) of representations \(\rho:\Gamma\to G\) is known as the representation variety. The group \(G\) acts on this space by conjugation, giving rise to a GIT quotient \(\mathfrak{M}(\Gamma,G)=R(\Gamma,G)//G\), known as the \(G\)-character variety of \(\Gamma\). These character varieties have been much studied for a variety of groups \(\Gamma\), including free groups and fundamental groups of surfaces. They have also been studied for the fundamental groups of knot complements in \(S^3\). An interesting case is that of torus knots, whose fundamental groups take the form \(\Gamma_{n,m}=\langle x,y\ |\ x^n=y^m\rangle\). The object of the present paper is to determine the motive of \(\mathfrak{M}(\Gamma_{n,m},G)\) for \(G=\operatorname{SL}_4\), the cases \(G=\operatorname{SL}_r\) for \(r=2,3\) being already known. The case \(r=4\) is considerably more complex. The method of this paper is applicable for \(r>4\), but gives rise to additional problems, both computational and theoretical. In Section 2, the authors review generalities concerning representation and character varieties; in particular, the type of a representation is introduced, leading to a decomposation of the representation variety according to type. The Grothendieck ring of varieties is also introduced in Section 2. Section 3 concerns the representation varieties of torus knots. Representations of fixed type are studied in Section 4 and explicit formulae for some of the strata are obtained in Section 5. A count of the components is carried out in Section 6 and the results for \(r=2,3\) are recovered in Section 7. The irreducible character variety for \(\operatorname{SL}_4\) is then studied in Section 8. There are now more than 350 types, so the computations are performed in the computer algebra system SageMath. The result is a formula for the motive of the irreducible character variety \(\mathfrak{M}^{\operatorname{irr}}(\Gamma_{n,m},\operatorname{SL}_4)\) (Theorem 1.1). The computation of the motive of \(\mathfrak{M}(\Gamma_{n,m},\operatorname{SL}_4)\) is completed in Section 9.