Volume bounds from Jones polynomial coefficients
by
David Futer
Michigan State University

I will describe a method for using projection diagrams to simultaneously estimate the outer coefficients of the Jones polynomial and the volume of the link complement. For alternating diagrams, the key ideas were worked out by Lackenby and Dasbach-Lin. It turns out that the same general method also works for many large families of non-alternating diagrams, yielding surprisingly sharp volume estimates from the Jones polynomial.

Most of this is joint work with Effie Kalfagianni and Jessica Purcell.

Date received: May 9, 2007