Exponential Iterated Integrals and the Relative Solvable Completion of the Fundamental Grou.pdf

a r X i v : m a t h / 0 2 0 2 2 3 7 v 2 [ m a t h .G T ] 1 0 J u n 2 0 0 4 Exponential Iterated Integrals and the Relative Solvable Completion of the Fundamental Group of a Manifold ? Carl Miller Department of Mathematics 970 Evans Hall University of California Berkeley, CA 94720-3840 Abstract We develop a class of integrals on a manifold M called exponential iterated integrals, an extension of K. T. Chen’s iterated integrals. It is shown that the matrix entries of any upper triangular representation of π1(M,x) can be expressed via these new integrals. The ring of exponential iterated integrals contains the coordinate rings for a class of universal representations, called the relative solvable completions of π1(M,x). We consider exponential iterated integrals in the particular case of fibered knot complements, where the fundamental group always has a faithful relative solv- able completion. Key words: iterated integrals, algebraic completions, fundamental groups 1 Introduction We are concerned with using integrals to determine the fundamental group of a smooth manifold M . Let PM denote the space of piecewise differentiable paths λ: [0, 1] → M . A 1-form ω ∈ E1(M ;C) provides a C-valued function on PM via integration: ∫ ω:PM → C ? This work was partially supported by the Duke math department’s VIGRE grant, DMS-9983320 from the NSF. Email address: carl@math.berkeley.edu (Carl Miller). Preprint submitted to Elsevier Science 1 February 2008 λ 7→ ∫ λ ω. And ∫ ω induces a map on the fundamental group π1 (M,x) if and only if ω is closed:∫ ω: π1 (M,x) → C. By the de Rham theorem, closed line integrals can distinguish two elements of π1 (M,x) if and only if they are different in H1(M ;C). K.-T. Chen improved this approach with iterated integrals of 1-forms (see [1]). For C-valued 1-forms ω1, ω2, . . . , ωn,∫ λ ω1ω2 . . . ωn := ∫ 0≤t1≤t2≤...≤tn≤1 f1 (t1) f2 (t2) . . . fn (tn) dt1dt2 . . . dtn where fi (t) dt is the pullback of ωi to E 1 ([0, 1];C) along λ: [0, 1] → M