JONES POLYNOMIAL AS A POTTS MODEL PARTITION FUNCTION

It is shown that the Jones polynomial occurring in the theory of links as a knot invariant is expressible directly as the partition function of a vertex model and a q2-state Potts model. This formulation of the Jones polynomial, which makes use of the solution of the Yang-Baxter equation of a q-state vertex model considered previously by Perk and Wu, does not require the use of the writhe of the link as needed in previous statistical mechanical considerations.