Peacock patterns and resurgence in complex Chern-Simons theory

TL;DR

This paper explores the resurgent properties of the partition function in complex Chern-Simons theory, revealing peacock-like Stokes patterns, conjecturing their resurgent nature, and connecting them to 3D indices with numerical validation.

Contribution

It introduces conjectures on the resurgent structure of complex Chern-Simons partition functions, linking Stokes automorphisms to 3D indices and providing proofs for related $q$-difference equations.

Findings

Stokes rays form peacock-like patterns in the complex plane.

Conjecture that perturbative series are resurgent with specific non-perturbative variables.

Numerical calculations support the conjectured relations for hyperbolic knots.

Abstract

The partition function of complex Chern-Simons theory on a 3-manifold with torus boundary reduces to a finite dimensional state-integral which is a holomorphic function of a complexified Planck's constant $\tau$ in the complex cut plane and an entire function of a complex parameter $u$. This gives rise to a vector of factorially divergent perturbative formal power series whose Stokes rays form a peacock-like pattern in the complex plane. We conjecture that these perturbative series are resurgent, their trans-series involve two non-perturbative variables, their Stokes automorphism satisfies a unique factorization property and that it is given explicitly in terms of a fundamental matrix solution to a (dual) linear $q$-difference equation. We further conjecture that entries of the Stokes automorphism matrix are the 3D-indices of Dimofte-Gaiotto-Gukov. We provide proofs of our statements regarding the $q$-difference equations and their properties of their fundamental solutions and illustrate our conjectures regarding the Stokes matrices with numerical calculations for the two simplest hyperbolic $4_1$ and $5_2$ knots.