Instanton Floer homology and the Alexander polynomial (Q986683)

For a knot \(K\) contained in \(S^{3}\), the authors defined in [J. Differ. Geom. 84, No.~2, 301--364 (2010; Zbl 1208.57008)] a Floer homology group \(KHI(K)\) which is a slight variant of a construction that appeared first in Floer's paper [\textit{A. Floer}, Lond. Math. Soc. Lect. Note Ser. 150, 97--114 (1990; Zbl 0788.57008)]. They introduced the groups in the context of sutured manifolds. Take the knot complement \(S^{3}\backslash N^{0}(K)\) and form a closed 3-manifold \(Z(K)\) by attaching to \(\partial N(K)\) the manifold \(F\times S^{1}\), where \(F\) is a genus 1 surface with one boundary component. The attachment is done in such way that \(\{point\}\times S^{1}\) is glued to the meridian of \(K\) and \(\partial F\times\{point\}\) is glued to the longitude. The vector space \(KHI(K)\) is then defined by applying Floer's instanton homology to the closed 3-manifold \(Z(K)\). Considering \(\Sigma\) the Seifert surface of \(K\) in \(S^{3}\), let \(\bar{\Sigma}\subset Z(K)\) be the closed surface formed as the union of \(\Sigma\) and one copy of \(F\). The homology class \(\bar{\sigma}=[\bar{\Sigma}] \in H_{2}(Z(K))\) determines an endomorphism \(\mu(\bar{\sigma})\) of \(KHI(K)\). Thus, as described in the authors' paper [op. cit.], the generalized eigenspaces of \(\mu(\bar{\sigma})\) give a direct sum decomposition \[ KHI(K)=\bigoplus_{j=-g}^{g}KHI(K,j),\quad g= \text{genus}(\Sigma). \] They define a canonical \(\mathbb{Z}_{2}\)-grading on \(KHI(K)\), and hence on each \(KHI(K,j)\), so that we may write \[ KHI(K,j)=KHI_{0}(K,j)\oplus KHI_{1}(K,j). \] This allows them to define the Euler characteristic \(\chi(KHI(K,j))\) as the difference of the ranks of the even and the odd parts. Thus, by introducing the decomposition in eigenspaces, the authors manage to achieve the main result of their paper: Main Theorem. For any knot \(K\) in \( S^{3}\), the Euler characteristics \(\chi(KHI(K,j))\) of the summands \(KHI(K,j)\) are minus the coefficients of the symmetrized Alexander polynomial \(\triangle_{K}(t)\), with Conway's normalization. That is, \[ \triangle_{K}(t)=-\sum_{j}\chi(KHI(K,j))t^{j}. \] The proof of the theorem rests on Conway's skein relations for the Alexander polynomial. The authors first extend the definition of \(KHI(K)\) to links. Then, given three oriented knots or links \(K_{+}\), \(K_{-}\) and \(K_{0}\) related by the skein moves, they establish a long exact sequence relating the instanton knot (or link) homologies of \(K_{+}\), \(K_{-}\) and \(K_{0}\). The arguments are presented in the context of sutured manifolds. Although the skein moves are quite standard by now, the structures and arguments used are quite technical and most of them rely heavily on their paper [op. cit.].