TQFT invariants at infinity for the Whitehead manifold (Q2725534)

Whitehead discovered the Whitehead Manifold as a counterexample to his own incorrect proof of the false theorem that every open contractible 3-manifold is homeomorphic with \(\mathbb{R}^3\). The author uses Topological Quantum Field Theory, as derived from the skein theory of the Kauffman bracket, to discover by computation many nontrivial TQFT-invariants at infinity for Whitehead's manifold, any one of which would give a new proof of Whitehead's correct theorem that the Whitehead Manifold is not \(\mathbb{R}^3\). The proofs, which use or discover a multitude of skein identities, are complex calculations which involve the techniques of skein theory and the trivalent calculus.NEWLINENEWLINEFor the entire collection see [Zbl 0959.00034].