The Kontsevich integral for bottom tangles in handlebodies

Abstract: Using an extension of the Kontsevich integral to tangles in handlebodies similar to a construction given by Andersen, Mattes and Reshetikhin, we construct a functor $Z:\mathcal{B}\to \widehat{\mathbb{A}}$, where $\mathcal{B}$ is the category of bottom tangles in handlebodies and $\widehat{\mathbb{A}}$ is the degree-completion of the category $\mathbb{A}$ of Jacobi diagrams in handlebodies. As a symmetric monoidal linear category, $\mathbb{A}$ is the linear PROP governing "Casimir Hopf algebras", which are cocommutative Hopf algebras equipped with a primitive invariant symmetric 2-tensor. The functor $Z$ induces a canonical isomorphism $\hbox{gr}\mathcal{B} \cong \mathbb{A}$, where $\hbox{gr}\mathcal{B}$ is the associated graded of the Vassiliev-Goussarov filtration on $\mathcal{B}$. To each Drinfeld associator $\varphi$ we associate a ribbon quasi-Hopf algebra $H_\varphi$ in $\hbox{gr}\mathcal{B}$, and we prove that the braided Hopf algebra resulting from $H_\varphi$ by "transmutation" is precisely the image by $Z$ of a canonical Hopf algebra in the braided category $\mathcal{B}$. Finally, we explain how $Z$ refines the LMO functor, which is a TQFT-like functor extending the Le-Murakami-Ohtsuki invariant.