  It is shown that for knots with a sufficiently regular character variety the
Dubois' torsion detects the A-polynomial of the knot. A global formula for the
integral of the Dubois torsion is given. The formula looks like the heat kernel
regularization of the formula for the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev invariant of
the double of the knot complement. The Dubois' torsion is recognized as the
pushforward of a measure on the character variety of the double of the knot
complement coming from the square root of Reidemeister torsion. This is used to
motivate a conjecture about quantum invariants detecting the A-polynomial.
