A geometric formula for the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev Quantum Invariants and some applications

Abstract

We provide a geometric construction of the boundary states for handlebodies which we in turn use to give a geometric formula for the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev quantum invariants. We then analyze the asymptotics of this invariant in the special case of a three manifold given by 1-surgery on a knot and we show that if the knot has an irreducible representation of its fundamental group into SU(2), then its quantum invariant cannot equal those of the three sphere. From this we conclude that if a knot has the same colored Jones polynomials as the unknot, it must be the unknot.