A generalization of the Gram determinant of type A.

The Gram determinant of type A was introduced by Lickorish in his work on invariants of 3 - manifolds. We generalize the theory of the Gram determinant of type A by evaluating, in the annulus, a bilinear form of non-intersecting connections in the disc. The main result provides a closed formula for this Gram determinant. We conclude the paper by discussing Chen's conjecture about the Gram determinant of type Mb evaluated in the Klein bottle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]