Stavros Garoufalidis
Abstract: Recently, Mullins calculated the Casson-Walker invariant of the 2-fold cyclic branched cover of an oriented link in S^3 in terms of its Jones polynomial and its signature, under the assumption that the 2-fold branched cover is a rational homology 3-sphere. Using elementary principles, we provide a similar calculation for the general case. In addition, we calculate the LMO invariant of the p-fold branched cover of twisted knots in S^3 in terms of the Kontsevich integral of the knot.
Key words: Casson-Walker Lescop invariant, cyclic branched covers, signatures of links, finite type invariants, LMO invariant.
Notes: 11 pages and 15 figures.