Related papers: Tackling the Trefoils

The 2-twist spun trefoil is an example of a sphere that is knotted in 4-dimensional space. Here this example is shown to be distinct from the same sphere with the reversed orientation. To demonstrate this fact a state-sum invariant for…

The knot quandle is a complete invariant for oriented classical knots in the $3$-sphere up to orientation. Eisermann computed the second quandle homology group of the knot quandle and showed that it characterizes the unknot. In this paper,…

A quandle is an algebraic system which excels at describing limited symmetries of a space. We introduce the concept of Schl\"{a}fli quandles which are defined relating to chosen rotational symmetries of regular tessellations. On the other…

We take a close look at a classical magic trick performed with a string, where a trivial knot is seemingly isotoped into a trefoil, and generalize it to a family of magic tricks for transforming the unknot into other knots. We encode such a…

Quandle colorings and cocycle invariants are studied for composite knots, and applied to chirality and abelian extensions. The square and granny knots, for example, can be distinguished by quandle colorings, so that a trefoil and its mirror…

The paper develops a general theory of orderability of quandles with a focus on link quandles of tame links and gives some general constructions of orderable quandles. We prove that knot quandles of many fibered prime knots are…

This paper has two-fold goal: it provides gentle introduction to Knot Theory starting from 3-coloring, the concept introduced by R. Fox to allow undergraduate students to see that the trefoil knot is non-trivial, and ending with statistical…

We introduce the notion of a hierarchical quandle, which is a generalisation of diquandles and multi-quandles. Using hierarchical quandle colourings, we construct a cocycle invariants for links coloured by quandles.

We determine the lengths of certain 3-cocycles of the 7-dihedral and the octahedral quandles. As a consequence, we show that both of the 2-twist-spun $5_{2}$-knot and the 4-twist-spun trefoil have the triple point number eight.

We give a rigorous proof of the colored HOMFLY-PT polynomials of the trefoil knot, the figure-eight knot and twist knots. For the trefoil knot and the figure-eight knot, it is expressed by a single sum, and for a twist knot, it is expressed…

If a knot has the Alexander polynomial not equal to 1, then it is linear $n$-colorable. By means of such a coloring, such a knot is given an upper bound for the minimal quandle order, i.e., the minimal order of a quandle with which the knot…

We introduce two kinds of structures, called v-structures and t-structures, on biquandles. These structures are used for colorings of diagrams of virtual links and twisted links such that the numbers of colorings are invariants. Given a…

We construct invariants of colored links using equivariant bordism groups of Conner and Floyd. We employ this bordism invariant to find the first examples of topological vortex knots, the knot structure of which is protected from decaying…

Biquandles are generalizations of quandles. As well as quandles, biquandles give us many invariants for oriented classical/virtual/surface links. Some invariants derived from biquandles are known to be stronger than those from quandles for…

The number of colorings of a knot diagram by a quandle has been shown to be a knot invariant by CJKLS using quandle cohomology methods. In a previous paper by the second named author, the CJKLS invariant was refined and, in particular, it…

A quandle is an algebraic system whose axioms are motivated by Reidemeister moves in knot theory. A typical example is a conjugation quandle arising from a group. A quandle is said to be admissible if it is isomorphic to a conjugation…

This is a report on our ongoing research on a combinatorial approach to knot recognition, using coloring of knots by certain algebraic objects called quandles. The aim of the paper is to summarize the mathematical theory of knot coloring in…

An inscribed knot is formed by polygonally connecting points lying on a knot $\gamma$ in parametric order, then closing the path by connecting the first and final points. The stick-knot number of a knot type K is the minimum number of line…

Quandles with involutions that satisfy certain conditions, called good involutions, can be used to color non-orientable surface-knots. We use subgroups of signed permutation matrices to construct non-trivial good involutions on extensions…

It is known that the number of biquandle colorings of a long virtual knot diagram, with a fixed color of the initial arc, is a knot invariant. In this paper we describe a more subtle invariant: a family of biquandle endomorphisms obtained…