English

The degenerate distributive complex is degenerate

Geometric Topology 2016-08-01 v3 Quantum Algebra

Abstract

We prove that the degenerate part of the distributive homology of a multispindle is determined by the normalized homology. In particular, when the multispindle is a quandle QQ, the degenerate homology of QQ is completely determined by the quandle homology of QQ. For this case (and generally for two term homology of a spindle) we provide an explicit K\"unneth-type formula for the degenerate part. This solves the mystery in algebraic knot theory of the meaning of the degenerate quandle homology, brought over 15 years ago when the homology theories were defined, and the degenerate part was observed to be non trivial.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1411.5905,
  title  = {The degenerate distributive complex is degenerate},
  author = {Jozef H. Przytycki and Krzysztof K. Putyra},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1411.5905},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

19 pages. 2nd version: the proof of Lemma A.8 is simplified. 3rd version: a few typos corrected, some colors in pictures changed to darker

R2 v1 2026-06-22T07:07:30.050Z