The colored Jones polynomial of the figure-eight knot and an $\operatorname{SL}(2;\mathbb{R})$-representation

Abstract

We study the asymptotic behavior of the $N$-dimensional colored Jones polynomial of the figure-eight knot, evaluated at $\exp\bigl((u+2p\pi\sqrt{-1})/N\bigr)$ as $N$ tends to infinity, where $u>\operatorname{arccosh}(3/2)$ is a real number and $p\ge1$ is an integer. It turns out that it corresponds to an $\operatorname{SL}(2;\mathbb{R})$ representation of the fundamental group of the knot complement. Moreover, it defines the adjoint Reidemeister torsion and the Chern--Simons invariant associated with the representation.