Related papers: Knot Tightening By Constrained Gradient Descent
Numerical simulations indicate that there exist conformations of the unknot, tied on a finite piece of rope, entangled in such a manner, that they cannot be disentangled to the torus conformation without cutting the rope. The simplest…
A knotted ribbon is one of physical aspect of a knot. A folded ribbon knot is a depiction of a knot obtained by folding a long and thin rectangular strip to become flat. The ribbonlength of a knot type can be defined as the minimum length…
We prove a version of symmetric criticality for ropelength-critical knots. Our theorem implies that a knot or link with a symmetric representative has a ropelength-critical configuration with the same symmetry. We use this to construct new…
Twisted torus knots and links are given by twisting adjacent strands of a torus link. They are geometrically simple and contain many examples of the smallest volume hyperbolic knots. Many are also Lorenz links. We study the geometry of…
The slicing degree of a knot $K$ is defined as the smallest integer $k$ such that $K$ is $k$-slice in $\#^n \overline{\mathbb{CP}^2}$ for some $n$. In this paper, we establish bounds for the slicing degrees of knots using Rasmussen's…
While the problem of computing the genus of a knot is now fairly well understood, no algorithm is known for its four-dimensional variants, both in the smooth and in the topological locally flat category. In this article, we investigate a…
Given a connected cobordism between two knots in the 3-sphere, our main result is an inequality involving torsion orders of the knot Floer homology of the knots, and the number of local maxima and the genus of the cobordism. This has…
We introduce swept-area pseudometrics on ropelength-filtered spaces of knot representatives. For a knot type \(K\) and a ropelength level \(\Lambda\), admissible isotopies are required to pass through curves of thickness at least one and…
It is a major unsolved problem as to whether unknot recognition - that is, testing whether a given closed loop in R^3 can be untangled to form a plain circle - has a polynomial time algorithm. In practice, trivial knots (which can be…
We present improved upper and lower bounds on the spanning ratio of $\theta$-graphs with at least six cones. Given a set of points in the plane, a $\theta$-graph partitions the plane around each vertex into $m$ disjoint cones, each having…
Tightness is a generalisation of the notion of convexity: a space is tight if and only if it is "as convex as possible", given its topological constraints. For a simplicial complex, deciding tightness has a straightforward exponential time…
A classical knot is described by a one-stroke trajectory with entanglements of a string. The replica method appears as a powerful tool in statistical mechanics for a polymer or self-avoiding walk. We consider this replica N to 0 limit in…
We study how confinement affects topology and conformations in polymer films of varying thickness $h$. The knotting probability exhibits a maximum at intermediate thicknesses near the bulk radius of gyration $h \approx R_\mathrm{g,bulk}$,…
Frequently, knots are enumerated by their crossing number. However, the number of knots with crossing number $c$ grows exponentially with $c$, and to date computer-assisted proofs can only classify diagrams up to around twenty crossings.…
Stochastic simulations are used to characterize the knotting distributions of random ring polymers confined in spheres of various radii. The approach is based on the use of multiple Markov chains and reweighting techniques, combined with…
Tensor network contraction is a fundamental mathematical operation that generalizes the dot product and matrix multiplication. It finds applications in numerous domains, such as database systems, graph theory, machine learning, probability…
Iterative rounding and relaxation have arguably become the method of choice in dealing with unconstrained and constrained network design problems. In this paper we extend the scope of the iterative relaxation method in two directions: (1)…
The primary objects of study in the ``knot theory of complex plane curves'' are C-links: links (or knots) cut out of a 3-sphere in the complex plane by complex plane transverse and totally tangential. Transverse C-links are naturally…
We investigate the sliding strength of thin filaments in frictional contact with a translating cylinder, perpendicular to the filaments' axes, in knotted (clove hitch) and unknotted (capstan) configurations. Recent work reported superlinear…
We address the fundamental network design problem of constructing approximate minimum spanners. Our contributions are for the distributed setting, providing both algorithmic and hardness results. Our main hardness result shows that an…