On the SL(2, C)-representation rings of free abelian groups

In this paper, we study "the ring of component functions" of SL(2, C)-representations of free abelian groups. This is a subsequent research of our previous work [11] for free groups. We introduce some descending filtration of the ring, and determine the structure of its graded quotients. Then we give two applications. In [30], we constructed the generalized Johnson homomorphisms. We give an upper bound on their images with the graded quotients. The other application is to construct a certain crossed homomorphisms of the automorphism groups of free groups. We show that our crossed homomorphism induces Morita's 1-cocycle defined in [22]. In other words, we give another construction of Morita's 1-cocyle with the SL(2, C)representations of the free abelian group.