English

Arc-presentations of links. Monotonic simplification

Geometric Topology 2013-10-22 v3

Abstract

We prove that any arc-presentation of the unknot admits a monotonic simplification by elementary moves; this yields a simple algorithm for recognizing the unknot. We obtain similar results for split links and composite links.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0208153,
  title  = {Arc-presentations of links. Monotonic simplification},
  author = {Ivan Dynnikov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0208153},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

latex, 45 pages, 34 figures; a mistake pointed out by W.Menasco and A.Sikora has been corrected