Skein Modules and the Noncommutative Torus

Abstract

We show that the Kauffman bracket skein module of a cylinder over the torus embeds as a subalgebra of the noncommutative torus. Using this we derive nice formulas for the Jones-Wenzl idempotents and analyze the structure of the Kauffman bracket skein module of the unknot as a module over the Kauffman bracket skein module of a cylinder over the torus.