English

The fundamental quandle of ribbon concordances

Geometric Topology 2026-02-26 v2

Abstract

We describe the fundamental quandle of a properly embedded surface FF (possibly with boundary) in R3×I\mathbb{R} ^{3}\times I, and derive its presentation in terms of a motion picture diagram or a CH-diagram of FF. Our study is based on the topological definition of the fundamental quandle. We prove that a ribbon concordance CC from a classical knot K1K_1 to K0K_0 gives rise to an injective quandle homomorphism Q(K0)Q(C)Q(K_0)\to Q(C) and a surjective quandle homomorphism Q(K1)Q(C)Q(K_1)\to Q(C).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.20841,
  title  = {The fundamental quandle of ribbon concordances},
  author = {Eva Horvat and Luka Marčič},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.20841},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

14 pages, 3 figures. Comments welcome!