Khovanov homology detects the trefoils
Geometric Topology
2022-03-17 v2 Symplectic Geometry
Abstract
We prove that Khovanov homology detects the trefoils. Our proof incorporates an array of ideas in Floer homology and contact geometry. It uses open books; the contact invariants we defined in the instanton Floer setting; a bypass exact triangle in sutured instanton homology, proven here; and Kronheimer and Mrowka's spectral sequence relating Khovanov homology with singular instanton knot homology. As a byproduct, we also strengthen a result of Kronheimer and Mrowka on representations of the knot group.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1801.07634,
title = {Khovanov homology detects the trefoils},
author = {John A. Baldwin and Steven Sivek},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1801.07634},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
54 pages, 23 figures; v2: accepted version