Qingtao Chen (Abu Dhabi)
Abstract
The original Volume Conjecture of Kashaev-Murakami-Murakami predicts a precise relation between the asymptotics of the colored Jones polynomials of a knot in S^3 and the hyperbolic volume of its complement. I will discuss two different directions that lead to generalizations of this conjecture.
The first direction concerns different quantum invariants of knots, arising from the colored SU(n) (with the colored Jones polynomial corresponding to the case n=2). I will first display subtle relations between congruence relations, cyclotomic expansions and the original Volume Conjecture for the colored Jones polynomials of knots. I will then generalize this point of view to the colored SU(n) invariant of knots. Certain congruence relations for the colored SU(n) invariants, discovered in joint work with K. Liu, P. Peng and S. Zhu, lead us to formulate cyclotomic expansions and a Volume Conjecture for these colored SU(n) invariants. If time permits, I will briefly discuss similar ideas for the Superpolynomials that arise in HOMFLY-PT homology.
Another direction for generalization involves the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev and the (modified) Turaev-Viro quantum invariants of 3-manifolds. In a joint work with T. Yang, I formulated a Volume Conjecture for the asymptotics of these 3-manifolds invariants evaluated at certain roots of unity, and numerically checked it for many examples. Interestingly, this conjecture uses roots of unity that are different from the one usually considered in literature. These 3-manifolds invariants are only polynomially large at the usual root of unity as the level of the representation approaches infinity, which is predicted by Witten's Asymptotic Expansion Conjecture. True understanding of this new phenomenon requires new physical and geometric interpretations that go beyond the usual quantum Chern-Simons theory.
Currently these new Volume Conjectures have been proved for many examples by various groups. However, like the original Volume Conjecture, a complete proof for general cases is still an open problem in this area. In a recent joint work with J. Murakami, I proved the asymptotic behavior of the quantum 6j-symbol evaluated at the unusual root of unity, which could explain the Volume Conjectures for the asymptotics of the Turaev-Viro invariants in general.