Related papers: On the Combinatorics of Smoothing

The connected sum of two flat virtual knots depends on the choice of diagrams and basepoints. We show that any minimal crossing diagram of a composite flat virtual knot is a connected sum diagram. We also show the crossing number of flat…

We study RNA foldings and investigate their topology using a combination of knot theory and embedded rigid vertex graphs. Knot theory has been helpful in modeling biomolecules, but classical knots place emphasis on a biomolecule's…

We have developed a reinforcement learning agent that often finds a minimal sequence of unknotting crossing changes for a knot diagram with up to 200 crossings, hence giving an upper bound on the unknotting number. We have used this to…

We discuss an "extrinsic" property of knots in a 3-subspace of the 3-sphere $S^3$ to characterize how the subspace is embedded in $S^3$. Specifically, we show that every knot in a subspace of the 3-sphere is transient if and only if the…

In this article we take up the calculation of the minimum number of colors needed to produce a non-trivial coloring of a knot. This is a knot invariant and we use the torus knots of type (2, n) as our case study. We calculate the minima in…

A crown diagram of a smooth, closed oriented 4-manifold can be thought of as the projection of a link in the product of a closed surface and the circle, with chords in the circle direction connecting the strands of each crossing. This paper…

We explore the application of automated reasoning techniques to unknot detection, a classical problem of computational topology. We adopt a two-pronged experimental approach, using a theorem prover to try to establish a positive result…

The unknotting number of a knot is the minimum number of crossings one must change to turn that knot into the unknot. The algebraic unknotting number is the minimum number of crossing changes needed to transform a knot into an Alexander…

To each rail knotoid we associate two unoriented knots along with their oriented counterparts, thus deriving invariants for rail knotoids based on these associations. We then translate them to invariants of rail isotopy for rail arcs.

We provide explicit formulas for the Alexander polynomial of pretzel knots and establish several immediate corollaries, including the characterization of pretzel knots with a trivial Alexander polynomial. As an application, we construct a…

Given a group endowed with a Z/2-valued morphism we associate a Gauss diagram theory, and show that for a particular choice of the group these diagrams encode faithfully virtual knots on a given arbitrary surface. This theory contains all…

We construct smooth concordance invariants of knots which take the form of piecewise linear maps from [0,1] to R, one for each n greater than or equal to 2. These invariants arise from sl(n) knot cohomology. We verify some properties which…

We use grid diagrams to give a combinatorial algorithm for computing the knot Floer homology of the pullback of a knot K in its m-fold cyclic branched cover Sigma^m(K), and we give computations when m=2 for over fifty three-bridge knots…

While knotoids on the sphere are well-understood by a variety of invariants, knotoids on the plane have proven more subtle to classify due to their multitude over knotoids on the sphere and a lack of invariants that detect a diagram's…

In this article we discuss applications of neural networks to recognising knots and, in particular, to the unknotting problem. One of motivations for this study is to understand how neural networks work on the example of a problem for which…

Given a surface with boundary and some points on its boundary, a polygon diagram is a way to connect those points as vertices of non-overlapping polygons on the surface. Such polygon diagrams represent non-crossing permutations on a surface…

This is a survey article about the connections between knot theory and four-dimensional topology. Every four-manifold can be represented in terms of a link, by a Kirby diagram. This point of view has led to progress in computing invariants…

It is known that each knot has a semimeander diagram (i. e. a diagram composed of two smooth simple arcs), however the number of crossings in such a diagram can only be roughly estimated. In the present paper we provide a new estimate of…

We present a set of 26 finite quandles that distinguish (up to reversal and mirror image) by number of colorings, all of the 2977 prime oriented knots with up to 12 crossings. We also show that 1058 of these knots can be distinguished from…

We enhance the psyquandle counting invariant for singular knots and pseudoknots using quivers analogously to quandle coloring quivers. This enables us to extend the in-degree polynomial invariants from quandle coloring quiver theory to the…