Garoufalidis proposed a conjecture on $q$-difference equations for the colored Jones polynomials of knots. \begin{equation} \hat{A}_K(\hat{l},\hat{m};q)J_n(K;q)=0 \end{equation} where the actions of the operators $\hat l$, $\hat m$ are defined by \begin{equation} \hat{l}J_n(K;q)=J_{n+1}(K;q) , \quad \hat{m}J_n(K;q)=q^{n/2}J_n(K;q) \ . \end{equation}
Are there analogous $\hat{A}$-polynomials which define $q$-difference equations for the colored Jones polynomials of links? If there are, they should be polynomials with $2n$ variables $\hat{l}_i, \hat{m}_i$ ($i=1,\cdots,n$) for a link with $n$ components. Are their actions to the colored Jones polynomials of links known?
More simply, is there a paper which expresses the classical $A$-polynomial $A(l,m)$ or the character variety for the Hopf link in $S^3$?