Estimating the states of the Kauffman bracket skein module
The states of the title are a set of knot types which suffice to create a generating set for the Kauffman bracket skein module of a manifold. The minimum number of states is a topological invariant, but quite difficult to compute. In this paper we show that a set of states determines a generating set for the ring of characters of the fundamental group, which in turn provides estimates of the invariant.