Intersections of dual \(\operatorname{SL}_3\)-webs (Q6961176)

Originally, \(\mathrm{SL}_3\)-webs were introduced in the paper [\textit{G. Kuperberg}, Commun. Math. Phys. 180, No. 1, 109--151 (1996; Zbl 0870.17005)] as oriented trivalent graphs on a disk used to construct natural bases for tensor invariant spaces of irreducible representations of \(\mathrm{SL}_3\). This notion has been extended to more general surfaces and has been used in the study of character varieties and skein algebras associated with these surfaces. In the paper under review, the authors put several existing versions of webs together and propose a new topological intersection number for an ordered pair of \(\mathrm{SL}_3\)-webs on a surface with punctures and marked points on the boundary. Using an intersection pairing between reduced \((\mathrm{SL}_3,\mathcal{A})\)-webs and a collection of \((\mathrm{SL}_3,\chi)\)-webs associated with the Fock-Goncharov cluster coordinates, they provide a natural combinatorial interpretation of the bijection from the set of reduced \((\mathrm{SL}_3,\mathcal{A})\)-webs to the tropical set \(\mathcal{A}^+_{\mathrm{PGL}_{3},\hat{S}}(\mathbb{Z}^t)\), as established in [\textit{D. C. Douglas} and \textit{Z. Sun}, Forum Math. Sigma 12, Paper No. e5, 55 p. (2024; Zbl 1540.57030)]. They then give a new proof of the flip equivariance of the above bijection, which is crucial for proving the Fock-Goncharov duality conjecture of higher Teichmüller spaces for \(\mathrm{SL}_3\). In the introductory section, the authors provide a concise and clear presentation of the setting and background material, including the various approaches to the Fock-Goncharov conjecture originally proposed in [\textit{V. Fock} and \textit{A. Goncharov}, Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 103, 1--211 (2006; Zbl 1099.14025)].