English

Braids, knots and contact structures

Geometric Topology 2007-05-23 v1 Differential Geometry

Abstract

These notes were prepared to supplement the talk that I gave on Feb 19, 2004, at the First East Asian School of Knots and Related Topics, Seoul, South Korea. In this article I review aspects of the interconnections between braids, knots and contact structures on Euclidean 3-space. I discuss my recent work with William Menasco (arXiv math.GT/0310279)} and (arXiv math.GT/0310280). In the latter we prove that there are distinct transversal knot types in contact 3-space having the same topological knot type and the same Bennequin invariant.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0403489,
  title  = {Braids, knots and contact structures},
  author = {Joan S. Birman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0403489},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

10 pages, 5 figures