Related papers: Tangle solutions for composite knots: applications…
The central discovery of $2d$ conformal theory was holomorphic factorization, which expressed correlation functions through bilinear combinations of conformal blocks, which are easily cut and joined without a need to sum over the entire…
We consider the ways in which a 4-tangle T inside a unit cube can be extended outside the cube into a knot or link L. We present two links n(T) and d(T) such that the greatest common divisor of the determinants of these two links always…
This paper is an introduction to rational tangles, rational knots and links and their applications to DNA. The paper can be read as an introduction to our more technical papers on rational tangles (math.GT/0311499) and on rational knots…
Decomposing knots and links into tangles is a useful technique for understanding their properties. The notion of prime tangles was introduced by Kirby and Lickorish in [3]; Lickorish proved [5] that by summing prime tangles one obtains a…
This paper gives infinitely many examples of unknot diagrams that are hard, in the sense that the diagrams need to be made more complicated by Reidemeister moves before they can be simplified. In order to construct these diagrams, we prove…
We produce embeddings of knots in thin position that admit compressible thin levels. We also find the bridge number of tangle sums where each tangle is high distance.
We make a new attempt at the recently suggested program to express knot polynomials through topological vertices, which can be considered as a possible approach to the tangle calculus: we discuss the Macdonald deformation of the relation…
We show that if a composite $\theta$-curve has (proper rational) unknotting number one, then it is the order 2 sum of a (proper rational) unknotting number one knot and a trivial $\theta$-curve. We also prove similar results for 2-strand…
We present an enhanced prime decomposition theorem for knots that gives the isotopy classes of composite knots that can be constructed from a given list of prime factors (allowing for the mirroring and orientation reversing for each…
We use the composite operator method (COM) to analyze the strongly correlated repulsive Hubbard model, investigating the effect of nearest-neighbor hoppings up to fourth order on a square lattice. We consider two sets of self-consistent…
The purpose of this article is two-fold: We first give a more elementary proof of a recent theorem of Korkmaz, Monden, and the author, which states that the commutator length of the n-th power of a Dehn twist along a boundary parallel curve…
A persistent lamination for a knot K is an essential lamination in the complement of the K, which remains essential after every non-trivial Dehn surgery along K. In particular, this implies that all of the Dehn surgery manifolds have…
We study 2-string free tangle decompositions of knots with tunnel number two. As an application, we construct infinitely many counter-examples to a conjecture in the literature stating that the tunnel number of the connected sum of prime…
We find an operational interpretation for the 4-tangle as a type of residual entanglement, somewhat similar to the interpretation of the 3-tangle. Using this remarkable interpretation, we are able to find the class of maximally entangled…
The fundamental quandle is an invariant for distinguishing surface knots, yet computable presentations have traditionally been limited to surfaces embedded in the $4$-sphere. Building on the framework of banded unlink diagrams introduced by…
We study the enumeration of alternating links and tangles, considered up to topological (flype) equivalences. A weight $n$ is given to each connected component, and in particular the limit $n\to 0$ yields information about (alternating)…
We develop a topological model of site-specific recombination that applies to substrates which are the connected sum of two torus links of the form $T(2,n)\#T(2,m)$. Then we use our model to prove that all knots and links that can be…
We present new computations of tight shapes obtained using the constrained gradient descent code RIDGERUNNER for 544 composite knots with 12 and fewer crossings, expanding our dataset to 943 knots and links. We use the new data set to…
We consider the question of when a rational homology 3-sphere is rational homology cobordant to a connected sum of lens spaces. We prove that every rational homology cobordism class in the subgroup generated by lens spaces is represented by…
The Knot Entropy Conjecture states that the exponential growth rate of the number of $n$-edge lattice polygons with knot-type $K$ is the same as that for unknot polygons. Moreover, the next order growth follows a power law in $n$ with an…