Wheels, Wheeling, and the Kontsevich Integral of the Unknot

Abstract

We conjecture an exact formula for the Kontsevich integral of the unknot, and also conjecture a formula (also conjectured independently by Deligne) for the relation between the two natural products on the space of Chinese characters. The two formulas use the related notions of "Wheels" and "Wheeling". We prove these formulas "on the level of Lie algebras" using standard techniques from the theory of Vassiliev invariants and the theory of Lie algebras.