Character varieties, \(A\)-polynomials and the AJ conjecture (Q507050)

Let \(M\) be a hyperbolic knot manifold, i.e., a knot manifold whose interior has a complete hyperbolic metric of finite volume. The rational geometric subvariety of the \(\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{C})\) or \(\mathrm{PSL}_2(\mathbb{C})\) character variety of \(M\), \(X(M)\) (respectively \(\bar X(M)\)), is the union of the \(\mathbb{Q}\)-components of \(X(M)\) (respectively \(\bar X(M)\)) each of which contains a discrete faithful character. It is not known how many \(\mathbb{C}\)-components that subvariety can possibly have. In this paper, the authors establish some facts about the behaviour of the \(\mathbb{C}\)-components of that subvariety under the restriction map to the \(\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{C})\) or \(\mathrm{PSL}_2(\mathbb{C})\) character variety of the boundary torus. As a first application, the authors give an estimation of the degrees of the \(A\)-polynomials and, as a second application, they give a generalization of a result of \textit{T. T. Q. Le} and \textit{A. T. Tran} [Indiana Univ. Math. J. 64, No. 4, 1103--1151 (2015; Zbl 1329.57011)] by proving the AJ conjecture for a certain class of knots in \(S^3\) including in particular any \(2\)-bridge knot over which the double branched cover of \(S^3\) is a lens space of prime order.