The Kauffman bracket and the Bollobas-Riordan polynomial of ribbon graphs

Sergei Chmutov, Igor Pak

Published 2004-04-27, updated 2004-06-02Version 2

For a ribbon graph $G$ we consider an alternating link $L_G$ in the 3-manifold $G\times I$ represented as the product of the oriented surface $G$ and the unit interval $I$. We show that the Kauffman bracket $[L_G]$ is an evaluation of the recently introduced Bollobas-Riordan polynomial $R_G$. This results generalizes the celebrated relation between Kauffman bracket and Tutte polynomial of planar graphs.