English

Minimal generating sets of directed oriented Reidemeister moves

Geometric Topology 2017-07-11 v2

Abstract

Polyak proved that the set {Ω1a,Ω1b,Ω2a,Ω3a}\{\Omega1a,\Omega1b,\Omega2a,\Omega3a\} is a minimal generating set of oriented Reidemeister moves. One may distinguish between forward and backward moves, obtaining 3232 different types of moves, which we call directed oriented Reidemeister moves. In this article we prove that the set of 88 directed Polyak moves {Ω1a,Ω1a,Ω1b,Ω1b,Ω2a,Ω2a,Ω3a,Ω3a}\{ \Omega{1a}^\uparrow, \Omega{1a}^\downarrow, \Omega{1b}^\uparrow, \Omega{1b}^\downarrow, \Omega{2a}^\uparrow, \Omega{2a}^\downarrow, \Omega{3a}^\uparrow, \Omega{3a}^\downarrow \} is a minimal generating set of directed oriented Reidemeister moves. We also specialize the problem, introducing the notion of a LL-generating set for a link LL. The same set is proven to be a minimal LL-generating set for any link LL with at least 22 components. Finally, we discuss knot diagram invariants arising in the study of KK-generating sets for an arbitrary knot KK, emphasizing the distinction between ascending and descending moves of type Ω3\Omega3.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1601.00559,
  title  = {Minimal generating sets of directed oriented Reidemeister moves},
  author = {Piotr Suwara},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1601.00559},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

18 pages, 17 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T12:22:35.678Z