When the theories meet: Khovanov homology as Hochschild homology of links (Q988506)

This paper presents a parallel between reduced graph Khovanov homology and Hochschild homology. In [Duke Math. J. 101 (3), 359--426 (2000; Zbl 1018.16015)], \textit{M. Khovanov} defined a link invariant of homological nature. The construction was then adapted to graphs by \textit{L. Helme-Guizon} and \textit{Y. Rong} in [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 5, 1365--1388 (2005; Zbl 1081.05034)]. The latter is defined for coefficients in any algebra \(\mathcal{A}\). There is also a refined version for every \(\mathcal{A}\)-bimodule \(\mathbb{M}\). It was proved in [\textit{L. Helme-Guizon}, \textit{J. H. Przytycki} and \textit{Y. Rong}, Fundam. Math. 190, 139--177 (2006; Zbl 1105.57012)] that the first Khovanov homology groups of an alternating link coincide with those of its Taits graph. In this paper, the author proves that the \(\mathbb{M}\)-reduced Khovanov homology groups of a polygon coincide with the Hochschild homology groups of \(\mathcal{A}\) with coefficients in \(\mathbb{M}\). In this statement, \(\mathcal{A}\) may be non commutative. The paper is organized as follows. The first part recalls Hochschild homology and computes it in some classical cases. The second part presents reduced Khovanov homology for graphs with some outlooks toward links. The main theorem is proved in the third part. The last part applies Hochschild homology computations to Khovanov homology for polygons, which leads to a new way to compute Khovanov homology of \((2,n)\)-torus knots. The paper ends with some prospect toward deformations of truncated polynomial algebras, which are likely to lead to some similar relations between Hochschild and Khovanov-Rozansky homologies.