English

Virtual Khovanov homology using cobordisms

Geometric Topology 2016-02-02 v3

Abstract

We extend Bar-Natan's cobordism based categorification of the Jones polynomial to virtual links. Our topological complex allows a direct extension of the classical Khovanov complex (h=t=0h=t=0), the variant of Lee (h=0,t=1h=0,t=1) and other classical link homologies. We show that our construction allows, over rings of characteristic two, extensions with no classical analogon, e.g. Bar-Natan's Z/2\mathbb{Z}/2-link homology can be extended in two non-equivalent ways. Our construction is computable in the sense that one can write a computer program to perform calculations, e.g. we have written a Mathematica based program. Moreover, we give a classification of all unoriented TQFTs which can be used to define virtual link homologies from our topological construction. Furthermore, we prove that our extension is combinatorial and has semi-local properties. We use the semi-local properties to prove an application, i.e. we give a discussion of Lee's degeneration of virtual homology.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1111.0609,
  title  = {Virtual Khovanov homology using cobordisms},
  author = {Daniel Tubbenhauer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1111.0609},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

78 pages, lots of figures, lots of typos, rewritten version, merged with arXiv:1212.0185, added referee's suggestions, to appear in J. Knot Theor. Ramif

R2 v1 2026-06-21T19:29:55.490Z