nLab stringy weight system

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Contents

Contents

Idea

Where a weight system on chord diagrams is equivalently a weight system on Jacobi diagrams (since chord diagrams modulo 4T are Jacobi diagrams modulo STU) and hence an assignment of Feynman amplitude-factors to Chern-Simons-Feynman diagrams (in the presence of a Wilson loop), a stringy weight system assigns such amplitude factors instead to the ribbon graph surfaces of open string worldsheets which become Jacobi diagrams in the point particle limit (Bar-Natan 95, Theorem 10, see also Kneissler 97, Section 1.3)

Details

Given any ground field 𝔽\mathbb{F}, consider

(1)Span(MarkedSurfaces /)Vect Span\big( MarkedSurfaces_{/\sim} \big) \;\in\; Vect

the linear span of the set of diffeomorphism classes of surfaces with boundary equipped with a finite number of chosen oriented points on their boundary, at least one on each connected component (Bar-Natan 95, Def. 1.12).

A stringy weight system is a linear map from this space to the ground field, hence the space of stringy weight systems is the dual vector space

(2)𝒮(Span(MarkedSurfaces /)) *. \mathcal{S} \;\coloneqq\; \Big( Span\big( MarkedSurfaces_{/\sim} \big) \Big)^\ast \,.

Of course a linear function Span(MarkedSurfaces /)𝔽Span\big( MarkedSurfaces_{/\sim}\big) \to \mathbb{F} is equivalently a plain function MarkedSurfaces𝔽MarkedSurfaces \to \mathbb{F}, but for the following construction it is necessary to consider formal linear combinations of marked surfaces:

The 't Hooft double line construction constitutes a linear map from the linear span of Jacobi diagrams modulo STU-relations to the linear span of marked surfaces (1)

(Bar-Natan 95, Theorem 10 with Theorem 8)

graphics from Sati-Schreiber 19c

Under passage to dual vector spaces this yields a linear map

(3)𝒮(tHperm) *n(𝒲 n) \mathcal{S} \overset{ (tH \,\circ\, perm)^\ast }{\longrightarrow} \underset{n \in \mathbb{N}}{\prod} \big( \mathcal{W}^n \big)

from stringy weight systems (2) to ordinary weight systems. This may be regarded as the point particle limit of stringy weight systems.

Properties

Relation to Lie algebra weight systems

Remark

(stringy weight systems span classical Lie algebra weight systems)

The image of the vector space (2) of stringy weight systems under the point particle limit map (3) inside the space of ordinary weight systems coincides with the direct sum of the linear span of Lie algebra weight systems for the general linear Lie algebras 𝔤𝔩(N)\mathfrak{gl}(N) and the special orthogonal Lie algebras 𝔰𝔬(N)\mathfrak{so}(N), and contains that of symplectic Lie algebras 𝔰𝔭(N)\mathfrak{sp}(N):

(Bar-Natan 95, Theorem 11)

graphics from Sati-Schreiber 19c

chord diagramsweight systems
linear chord diagrams,
round chord diagrams
Jacobi diagrams,
Sullivan chord diagrams
Lie algebra weight systems,
stringy weight system,
Rozansky-Witten weight systems


knotsbraids
chord diagram,
Jacobi diagram
horizontal chord diagram
1T&4T relation2T&4T relation/
infinitesimal braid relations
weight systemhorizontal weight system
Vassiliev knot invariantVassiliev braid invariant
weight systems are associated graded of Vassiliev invariantshorizontal weight systems are cohomology of loop space of configuration space

References

The concept (not by this name, though) is due to

where it is attributed (Remark 1.13) to private communication with Maxim Kontsevich.

See also

Last revised on January 9, 2020 at 09:06:37. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.