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Thickened Surfaces, Checkerboard Surfaces, And Quantum Link Invariants, Joseph W. Boninger
Thickened Surfaces, Checkerboard Surfaces, And Quantum Link Invariants, Joseph W. Boninger
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This dissertation has two parts, each motivated by an open problem related to the Jones polynomial. The first part addresses the Volume Conjecture of Kashaev, Murakami, and Murakami. We define a polynomial invariant, JTn, of links in the thickened torus, which we call the nth toroidal colored Jones polynomial, and we show JTn satisfies many properties of the original colored Jones polynomial. Most significantly, JTn exhibits volume conjecture behavior. We prove a volume conjecture for the 2-by-2 square weave, and provide computational evidence for other links. We also give two equivalent constructions …