Abstract
The algebras L(g,n,H) have been introduced by Alekseev-Grosse-Schomerus and Buffenoir-Roche in the middle of the 1990's, in the program of combinatorial quantization of the moduli space of flat G-connections over the surface S(g,n) of genus g with n open disks removed. The Hopf algebra H, called gauge algebra, was originally the quantum group U_q(g), with g = Lie(G). In this thesis we apply these algebras L(g,n,H) to low-dimensional topology (mapping class groups and skein algebras of surfaces), under the assumption that H is a finite dimensional factorizable ribbon Hopf algebra which is not necessarily semisimple, the guiding example of such a Hopf algebra being the restricted quantum group associated to sl(2) (at a 2p-th root of unity).First, we construct from L(g,n,H) a projective representation of the mapping class groups of S(g,0)D and of S(g,0) (D being an open disk). We provide formulas for the representations of Dehn twists generating the mapping class group; in particular these formulas allow us to show that our representation is equivalent to the one constructed by Lyubashenko-Majid and Lyubashenko via categorical methods. For the torus S(1,0) with the restricted quantum group associated to sl(2) for the gauge algebra, we compute explicitly the representation of SL(2,Z) using a suitable basis of the representation space and we determine the structure of this representation.Second, we introduce a diagrammatic description of L(g,n,H) which enables us to define in a very natural way the Wilson loop map W. This maps associates an element of L(g,n,H) to any link in (S(g,n)D) x [0,1] which is framed, oriented and colored by H-modules. When the gauge algebra is the restricted quantum group associated to sl(2), we use W and the representations of L(g,n,H) to construct representations of the skein algebras S_q(S(g,n)). For the torus S(1,0) we explicitly study this representation.