Twisting Kuperberg invariants via Fox calculus and Reidemeister torsion

Abstract

We study Kuperberg invariants for sutured manifolds in the case of a semidirect product of an involutory Hopf superalgebra $H$ with its automorphism group $\text{Aut}(H)$. These are topological invariants of balanced sutured $3$–manifolds endowed with a homomorphism of the fundamental group into $\text{Aut}(H)$, and possibly with a ${\text{Spin}}^c$ structure and a homology orientation. We show that these invariants are computed via a form of Fox calculus and that, if $H$ is $\mathbb{N}$–graded, they can be extended in a canonical way to polynomial invariants. When $H$ is an exterior algebra, we show that this invariant specializes to a refinement of the twisted relative Reidemeister torsion of sutured $3$–manifolds. We also give an explanation of our Fox calculus formulas in terms of a particular Hopf group-algebra.