Irreducibility of \(q\)-difference operators and the knot \(7_{4}\) (Q373635)

The paper is motivated by the AJ conjecture. The colored Jones function is known to be \(q\)-holonomic [\textit{S. Garoufalidis} and \textit{T. T. Q. Lê}, Geom. Topol. 9, 1253--1293 (2005; Zbl 1078.57012)], roughly speaking this means that it satisfies a nontrivial difference recursion relation. The non-commutative A-polynomial is defined to be such recurrence for the colored Jones function, of minimal order. The AJ conjecture relates a specialization of the non-commutative A-polynomial of a knot with its A-polynomial. The paper determines the non-commutative A-polynomial of the knot \(7_4\), and of several double twist knots. As a corollary this gives the AJ conjecture for the knot \(7_4\), the simplest knot with reducible non-abelian \(\mathrm{SL}(2, {\mathbb C})\) character variety. To find the non-commutative A-polynomial, the authors first use computer algebra algorithms to find a recurrence for the colored Jones function of \(7_4\). A substantial part of the proof is then aimed at showing that this recurrence in fact has minimal order. The proof of irreducibility of the \(q\)-difference operator relies, in particular, on the algorithm of [\textit{S. A. Abramov} et al., Discrete Math. 180, No. 1--3, 3--22 (1998; Zbl 0932.33019)].