Root polytopes, parking functions, and the HOMFLY polynomial

DOI10.4171/QT/89MaRDI QIDQ2360090zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Tamás Kálmán, Hitoshi Murakami

Publication date 23 June 2017

Published in Quantum Topology (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1305.4925

zbMATH Keywords

\(h\)-vectoralternating linkHOMFLY polynomialparking functionroot polytopeSeifert graph

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General geometric structures on low-dimensional manifolds (57M50)

Abstract: We show that for a special alternating link diagram, the following three polynomials are essentially the same: a) the part of the HOMFLY polynomial that corresponds to the leading term in the Alexander polynomial; b) the $h$-vector for a triangulation of the root polytope of the Seifert graph and c) the enumerator of parking functions for the planar dual of the Seifert graph. These observations yield formulas for the maximal $z$-degree part of the HOMFLY polynomial of an arbitrary homogeneous link as well. Our result is part of a program aimed at reading HOMFLY coefficients out of Heegaard Floer homology.

Review text

A special alternating knot is a knot with an alternating diagram where one of the checkerboard surfaces of the diagram is orientable. Such a knot diagram yields a plane bipartite checkerboard graph \(G\). \textit{A. Postnikov} [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2009, No. 6, 1026--1106 (2009; Zbl 1162.52007)] associates a root polytope \(\mathcal{Q}_G\) to \(G\). In this article, the authors build a triangulation of the root polytope \(\mathcal{Q}_G\) which comes from certain spanning trees of the graph \(G\). The \(h\)-vector of the triangulation is a polynomial that keeps track of how many simplices of each dimension are in the triangulation. The main theorem of the article relates the \(h\)-vector of this triangulation of the root polytope of a special alternating link \(L\) to the coefficient of the maximal \(z\)-degree term in the HOMFLY-PT polynomial of \(L\). An alternate formulation of this coefficient in terms of parking functions (see [\textit{A. Postnikov} and \textit{B. Shapiro}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 356, No. 8, 3109--3142 (2004; Zbl 1043.05038)]) of one of the checkerboard graphs is also given.

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Cited in

(11)

• Hypergraph polynomials and the Bernardi process
• Interior polynomial for signed bipartite graphs and the HOMFLY polynomial
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 4109655 (Why is no real title available?)
• Root polytopes, Tutte polynomials, and a duality theorem for bipartite graphs
• On the polymatroid Tutte polynomial
• Root polytopes and Jaeger‐type dissections for directed graphs
• h^* -vectors of graph polytopes using activities of dissecting spanning trees
• A deletion-contraction formula and monotonicity properties for the polymatroid Tutte polynomial
• The sandpile group of a trinity and a canonical definition for the planar Bernardi action
• Crossing number of (closed) homogeneous braids
• Polytopal perspectives on the Alexander polynomial of special alternating links

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