arXiv research

The abstract discusses conjectures about Chern-Simons invariants of 3-manifolds.

We prove Simon's conjecture for 3-manifolds.

The paper proves Simon's conjecture for closed Einstein spaces, setting eigenvalue bounds.

Paper proves Simon's third gap conjecture for minimal surfaces in spheres.

The main result of this paper, Simon's conjecture for fibered knots, was previously proven by Silver and Whitten math.GT/0405462 with essentially the same proof. This paper is therefore being withdrawn. The author would like to apologize for having missed this.

This paper makes certain observations regarding some conjectures of Milnor and Ramakrishnan in hyperbolic geometry and algebraic K-theory. As a consequence of our observations, we obtain new results and conjectures regarding the rationality and irrationality of Chern-Simons invariants of hyperbolic 3-manifolds.

Chern-Simons theory in the 1/N expansion has been conjectured to be equivalent to a topological string theory. This conjecture predicts a remarkable relationship between knot invariants and Gromov-Witten theory. We review some basic aspects of this relationship, as well as the tests of this conjecture performed over th…

In this paper, we show that any knot group maps onto at most finitely many knot groups. This gives an affirmative answer to a conjecture of J. Simon. We also bound the diameter of a closed hyperbolic 3-manifold linearly in terms of the presentation length of its fundamental group, improving a result of White.

We study the Chern-Simons partition function of orthogonal quantum group invariants, and propose a new orthogonal Labastida-Mariño-Ooguri-Vafa conjecture as well as degree conjecture for free energy associated to the orthogonal Chern-Simons partition function. We prove the degree conjecture and some interesting cases o…

Explains geometric inequalities for minimal hypersurfaces.

The paper proves Michael-Simon inequalities in hyperbolic space using novel curvature flows.

R.M. Kashaev conjectured that the asymptotic behavior of his link invariant, which equals the colored Jones polynomial evaluated at a root of unity, determines the hyperbolic volume of any hyperbolic link complement. We observe numerically that for knots $6_3$, $8_9$ and $8_{20}$ and for the Whitehead link, the colored…

We propose an extension of the recently-proposed volume conjecture for closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds, to all orders in perturbative expansion. We first derive formulas for the perturbative expansion of the partition function of complex Chern-Simons theory around a hyperbolic flat connection, which produces infinitely-m…

Teichmüller TQFT is a unitary 3d topological theory whose Hilbert spaces are spanned by Liouville conformal blocks. It is related but not identical to PSL(2,R) Chern-Simons theory. To physicists, it is known in particular in the context of 3d-3d correspondence and also in the holographic description of Virasoro conform…

Study on slow convergence in geometric variational problems.

We formulate a refinement of SU(N) Chern-Simons theory on a three-manifold via the refined topological string and the (2,0) theory on N M5 branes. The refined Chern-Simons theory is defined on any three-manifold with a semi-free circle action. We give an explicit solution of the theory, in terms of a one-parameter refi…

We define an extended Bloch group and show it is isomorphic to $H_3(PSL(2,C)^δ;Z)$. Using the Rogers dilogarithm function this leads to an exact simplicial formula for the universal Cheeger-Simons class on this homology group. It also leads to an independent proof of the analytic relationship between volume and Chern-S…

We find some integral formulas of Simons and Bochner type and use them to study biharmonic and biconservative submanifolds in space forms. We obtain rigidity results that in the biharmonic case represent partial answers to two well-known conjectures on such submanifolds in spheres.

We define an extended Bloch group and show it is naturally isomorphic to H_3(PSL(2,C)^δ;Z). Using the Rogers dilogarithm function this leads to an exact simplicial formula for the universal Cheeger-Chern-Simons class on this homology group. It also leads to an independent proof of the analytic relationship between volu…

Complex Chern-Simons theory reveals peacock patterns in perturbative series.

We show that Chern-Simons gauge theory with appropriate cutoffs is equivalent, term by term in perturbation theory, to a Fermionic theory with a nonlocal interaction term. When an additional cutoff is placed on the Fermi fields, this Fermionic theory gives rise to a convergent perturbation expansion. This leads us to c…

Paper confirms Thom's conjecture for nonlinear evolutions on manifolds.

Paper proves pinching theorem for minimal surfaces in spheres.

It is conjectured that for each knot $K$ in $S^3$, the fundamental group of its complement surjects onto only finitely many distinct knot groups. Applying character variety theory we obtain an affirmative solution of the conjecture for a class of small knots that includes 2-bridge knots.

Study wave functions in complex Chern-Simons theory, finding integrality and rational points.

Four minimal spheres found in sphere with special metric.

Proves a weak version of Perdomo Conjecture on minimal hypersurfaces.

Study SO(3)-knot states for torus complements, linking to simplicial volume.

In a previous paper [\AS], we used superspace techniques to prove that perturbation theory (around a classical solution with no zero modes) for Chern--Simons quantum field theory on a general $3$-manifold $M$ is finite. We conjectured (and proved for the case of $2$-loops) that, after adding counterterms of the expecte…

Study knot invariants to answer questions about slice genus and clasp numbers.

The trivial flat connection's Chern-Simons theory is resurgent, revealing its structure.

We clarify and refine the relation between the asymptotic behavior of the colored Jones polynomial and Chern-Simons gauge theory with complex gauge group SL(2,C). The precise comparison requires a careful understanding of some delicate issues, such as normalization of the colored Jones polynomial and the choice of pola…

Simon's knot genus problem solved with 3-manifold groups.

New methods reveal symmetries in Chern-Simons theory.

The abstract discusses resurgent functions in quantum knot invariants.

New theory connects string theory to swampland distance conjecture.

We prove optimal genus bounds for minimal surfaces arising from the min-max construction of Simon-Smith. This confirms a conjecture made by Pitts-Rubinstein in 1986.

We compute the vacuum expectation values of torus knot operators in Chern-Simons theory, and we obtain explicit formulae for all classical gauge groups and for arbitrary representations. We reproduce a known formula for the HOMFLY invariants of torus links and we obtain an analogous formula for Kauffman invariants. We …

The paper proves a quantum modularity conjecture for 3-manifolds.

Study proves Hecke lifting conjecture for torus knots and verifies it for any framed knots.

We address a conjecture that $π_1$-surjective maps between closed aspherical 3-manifolds having the same rank on $π_1$ must be of non-zero degree. The conjecture is proved for Seifert manifolds, which is used in constructing the first known example of minimum Haken manifold. Another motivation is to study epimorphisms …

The paper reinterprets a quantum invariant using state integrals and contour integrals.

The Quantum Modularity Conjecture of Zagier predicts the existence of a formal power series with arithmetically interesting coefficients that appears in the asymptotics of the Kashaev invariant at each root of unity. Our goal is to construct a power series from a Neumann-Zagier datum (i.e., an ideal triangulation of th…

We develop several methods that allow us to compute all-loop partition functions in perturbative Chern-Simons theory with complex gauge group G_C, sometimes in multiple ways. In the background of a non-abelian irreducible flat connection, perturbative G_C invariants turn out to be interesting topological invariants, wh…

This article pursues the study of the knot state asymptotics in the large level limit initiated in "Knot sate Asymptotics I". As a main result, we prove the Witten asymptotic expansion conjecture for the Dehn fillings of the figure eight knot. The state of a knot is defined in the realm of Chern-Simons topological quan…

The purpose of the paper is to introduce some conjectures regarding the analytic continuation and the arithmetic properties of quantum invariants of knotted objects. More precisely, we package the perturbative and nonperturbative invariants of knots and 3-manifolds into two power series of type P and NP, convergent in …

We outline a proof of a remarkable conjecture of Labastida-Mari{ñ}o-Ooguri-Vafa about certain new algebraic structures of quantum link invariants and the integrality of infinite family of new topological invariants. Our method is based on the cut-and-join analysis and a special rational ring characterizing the structur…

Quantizes Chern-Simons invariant for tangle exteriors.