Twisted Kuperberg invariants of knots and Reidemeister torsion via twisted Drinfeld doubles

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants of knots in the three-sphere obtained from a twisted Drinfeld double of a Hopf algebra, or equivalently, the relative Drinfeld center of the crossed product $\text{Rep}(H)⋊\text{Aut}(H)$. These are quantum invariants of knots endowed with a homomorphism of the knot group to $\text{Aut}(H)$. We show that, at least for knots in the three-sphere, these invariants provide a non-involutory generalization of the Fox-calculus-twisted Kuperberg invariants of sutured manifolds introduced previously by the author, which are only defined for involutory Hopf algebras. In particular, we describe the $SL(n,\mathbb{C})$-twisted Reidemeister torsion of a knot complement as a Reshetikhin-Turaev invariant.

arXiv comment26 pages. Various improvements: the case of Hopf-superalgebras now is done with more care, Prop. 2.3 has been generalized and has simpler proof, the construction of the invariant has been streamlined, unnecessary material was removed