English

A Study of Gram Determinants in Knot Theory

Geometric Topology 2025-12-01 v2

Abstract

Historically originated as a sub-field of topology, knot theory is an active area of mathematical investigation that has strong connections with a diverse set of scientific fields such as algebra, biology, and statistical mechanics. A popular and important concept in linear algebra, Gram determinants enjoy a connection with the mathematical theory of knots. In this article, we expose this concept and present several types of Gram determinants in what can be considered as a survey of the current Gram determinants of interest to knot theorists; examples are included to illustrate the definitions. In particular, we pay special attention to a recently defined determinant from a M\"obius band and we further study its structure. At the end, some speculation is presented regarding the closed formula for the Gram determinant of type (Mb)1(Mb)_1, a problem that arouses serious interest among knot theorists.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2402.09704,
  title  = {A Study of Gram Determinants in Knot Theory},
  author = {Dionne Ibarra and Gabriel Montoya-Vega},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.09704},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

17 pages, 71 figures