Invariants for 3-manifolds from the combinatorics of the Jones polynomial (Q805012)

The author provides a simplified version of some of \textit{E. Witten}'s invariants [Commun. Math. Phys. 121, No.3, 351-399 (1989; Zbl 0667.57005)]. These invariants are associated with r-th roots of unity for \(r\leq 6\). An appendix indicates that this approach may be successfully extended, using work of \textit{K. H. Ko} and \textit{L. Smolinsky} [reviewed above (see Zbl 0728.57010)] to the cases \(r>6\). Thus the method provides a 3-manifold invariant associated with each root of unity. The bracket polynomial of \textit{L. H. Kauffman} [Topology 26, 395-407 (1987; Zbl 0622.57004)] is utilized along with linear skein theory and standard surgery on the 3-sphere to obtain the results. Some of the calculations are contained in a paper of \textit{R. Kirby} and \textit{P. Melvin} [Geometry of low-dimensional manifolds 2, Proc. Symp., Durham/U.K. 1989, Lond. Math. Soc. Lect. Note Ser. 151, 101-114 (1990)].