Casson-Lin's Invariant and Floer Homology (Q4378085)

In 1992 X. S. Lin defined a knot invariant using methods analogous to the original definition by Casson of the Casson invariant, but using the space of \(SU(2)\)-representations of the knot group which have trace \(0\) on meridians. Lin showed that his invariant was equivalent to the signature of the knot. The aim of the present paper is to give a Floer homology type generalization of Lin's invariant whose Euler characteristic will essentially coincide with the Lin invariant, just as the Euler characteristic of Floer homology gives the Casson invariant. Following Lin's approach it is shown that any braid \(\beta\), which will correspond to a diffeomorphism of \(S^2\)-points, gives rise to a symplectic diffeomorphism of a monotone symplectic manifold. Using the methods of symplectic Floer homology, this gives rise to a chain complex whose period depends only on the knot closure \(K\) of \(\beta\). It is then shown that the homology of this complex depends only on \(K\) and the Euler characteristic is Lin's invariant. Computations are made for \((2,q)\)-torus knots. The boundary operator is zero in these cases but the author suggests that it may be non-zero for other torus knots.