Volumes of representations and birationality of the peripheral holonomy
  We discuss here a generalization of a theorem by Dunfield stating that the peripheral holonomy map, from the character variety of a 3-manifold to the A-polynomial is birational. Dunfield's proof involves the rigidity of maximal volume. The volume is still an important ingredient in this paper. Unfortunately at this point no complete proof is done. Instead, a conjecture is stated about the volume function on the character variety that would imply the generalized birationality result. 
Antonin Guilloux
math.GT