Parabolic skein modules

Abstract

We develop skein theory for 3-manifolds in the presence of codimension-one defects, focusing especially on defects arising from parabolic induction/restriction for quantum groups. We use these defects as a model for the quantum decorated character stacks of arXiv:2102.12283, thus extending them to 3-manifolds with surface defects. As a special case we obtain knot invariants closely related to the ``quantum $A$-polynomial", and we give a concrete method for computation resembling the approach of Dimofte and collaborators based on ideal triangulations and gluing equations.

45 pages, 25 figures. Comments welcome!