On the colored Jones polynomial, sutured Floer homology, and knot Floer homology (Q962144)

First some notation. For a knot \(K\) in \(S^3,\) let \(\widetilde{Kh}_n(K)\) denote Khovanov's categorification of the reduced \(n\)-colored Jones polynomial of \(K.\) This is essentially the Khovanov homology of an \(n\)-cable of \(K.\) Let \(\overline{K}\) be the mirror of \(K,\) and let \(\Sigma(S^3,K)\) be the double branched cover of \(S^3\) along \(K.\) The preimage of \(K\) inside \(\Sigma(S^3,K)\) will be denoted by \(\widetilde{K}.\) For a closed oriented 3-manifold \(Y\) the finitely generated Abelian group \(\widehat{HF}(Y)\) is the ``hat'' version of the Heegaard Floer homology of \(Y,\) as defined by Ozsváth and Szabó. Given a null-homologous knot \(K \subset Y,\) the group \(\widehat{HFK}(Y,K)\) is the knot Floer homology of \(K,\) due to Ozsváth-Szabó, and also to Rasmussen. The main result of the paper is that \(\widetilde{Kh}_n(K)\) detects the unknot for \(n>1.\) This striking result follows from the existence of a spectral sequence from \(\widetilde{Kh}_n(\overline{K})\) to a Heegaard Floer homology group \(HF_n(K).\) Here \(HF_1(K) = \widehat{HF}(\Sigma(S^3,K)),\) while \[ HF_n(K) = \widehat{HFK}\left(\Sigma(S^3,K),\widetilde{K}\right) \] if \(n>1\) is odd and \[ HF_n(K) = \widehat{HFK}\left(S^3,K\# K^r\right) \] if \(n\) is even. For \(n=1,\) this spectral sequence was previously constructed by Ozsváth and Szabó. The proof consists of two steps. Given a balanced sutured manifold \((M,\gamma),\) one can associate to it the sutured Floer homology group \(SFH(M,\gamma),\) defined by Juhász. The authors introduce the notion of a balanced tangle \(T^n\) inside the product sutured manifold \(D^2 \times I.\) Taking the double branched cover, one then gets a balanced sutured manifold \(\Sigma(D^2 \times I, T^n).\) In the first step, the authors construct a spectral sequence whose \(E^2\) term is \(\widetilde{Kh}_n(\overline{K})\) and whose \(E^{\infty}\) term is \(SFH(\Sigma(D \times I,T^n)).\) For this, they generalize the link surgeries spectral sequence of Ozsváth and Szabó to the sutured Floer homology setting. This involves extending the theory of Heegaard multi-diagrams to sutured manifolds. The second step consists of identifying the group \(SFH(\Sigma(D \times I, T^n))\) as \(HF_n(K)\) when \(T^n\) is obtained from \(K\) by removing the neighborhood of a point on \(K\) and then taking the \(n\)-cable.