English

NP-hard problems naturally arising in knot theory

Geometric Topology 2024-07-17 v3

Abstract

We prove that certain problems naturally arising in knot theory are NP--hard or NP--complete. These are the problems of obtaining one diagram from another one of a link in a bounded number of Reidemeister moves, determining whether a link has an unlinking or splitting number kk, finding a kk-component unlink as a sublink, and finding a kk-component alternating sublink.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1809.10334,
  title  = {NP-hard problems naturally arising in knot theory},
  author = {Dale Koenig and Anastasiia Tsvietkova},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.10334},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

Final version, to appear in Transactions of the American Math. Soc

R2 v1 2026-06-23T04:19:57.649Z