The scheme of characters in SL 2

Abstract

The aim of this article is to study the SL(2,C)-character scheme of a finitely generated group. Given a presentation of a finitely generated group $\Gamma$, we give equations defining the coordinate ring of the scheme of SL(2,C)-characters of $\Gamma$ (finitely many equations when $\Gamma$ is finitely presented). We also study the scheme of abelian and nonsimple representations and characters. Finally we apply our results to study the SL(2,C)-character scheme of the Borromean rings.

Accepted for publication in the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society