A homological definition of the HOMFLY polynomial
arXiv:math/0608527 · doi:10.2140/agt.2007.7.1409
Abstract
We give a new definition of the knot invariant associated to the Lie algebra su_{N+1}. The knot or link must be presented as the plat closure of a braid. The invariant is then a homological intersection pairing between two submanifolds of a configuration space of points in a disk. This generalizes previous work on the Jones polynomial, which is the case N=1.
22 pages, 7 figures