Related papers: Racks and blocked braids

A braided monoidal category may be considered a $3$-category with one object and one $1$-morphism. In this paper, we show that, more generally, $3$-categories with one object and $1$-morphisms given by elements of a group $G$ correspond to…

The family of $J$-reflection groups can be seen as a combinatorial generalisation of irreducible rank two complex reflection groups and was introduced by the author in a previous article. In this article, we define the braid groups…

Several distinct Garside monoids having torus knot groups as groups of fractions are known. For $n,m\geq 2$ two coprime integers, we introduce a new Garside monoid $\mathcal{M}(n,m)$ having as Garside group the $(n,m)$-torus knot group,…

We begin with a brief sketch of what is known and conjectured concerning braided monoidal 2-categories and their applications to 4d topological quantum field theories and 2-tangles (surfaces embedded in 4-dimensional space). Then we give…

For an abelian group $ A $, we study a close connection between braided crossed $ A $-categories with a trivialization of the $ A $-action and $ A $-graded braided tensor categories. Additionally, we prove that the obstruction to the…

The spaces of triangulations of a given manifold have been widely studied. The celebrated theorem of Pachner~\cite{Pachner} says that any two triangulations of a given manifold can be connected by a sequence of bistellar moves, or Pachner…

Twisted knot theory, introduced by M.O. Bourgoin, is a generalization of virtual knot theory. It naturally yields the notion of a twisted braid, which is closely related to the notion of a virtual braid due to Kauffman. In this paper, we…

Various properties of a class of braid matrices, presented before, are studied considering $N^2 \times N^2 (N=3,4,...)$ vector representations for two subclasses. For $q=1$ the matrices are nontrivial. Triangularity $(\hat R^2 =I)$…

Path algebras are a convenient way of describing decompositions of tensor powers of an object in a tensor category. If the category is braided, one obtains representations of the braid groups $B_n$ for all $n\in \N$. We say that such…

We study algebraic aspects of generalized Legendrian racks, which are nonassociative structures based on the Legendrian Reidemeister moves. We answer an open question characterizing the group of GL-structures on a given rack. As…

The braid groups B_n can be defined as the mapping class group of the n-punctured disc. The Lawrence-Krammer representation of the braid group B_n is the induced action on a certain twisted second homology of the space of unordered pairs of…

We define a new algebraic structure called a \emph{pointed rack} and use it to construct ambient isotopy invariants of $ n $-braids. We first introduce an integer-valued invariant of braids using pointed racks. This is then strengthened by…

Birman, Ko and Lee have introduced a new monoid ${\cal B}^{*}_{n}$--with an explicit presentation--whose group of fractions is the $n$-strand braid group ${\cal B}_{n}$. Building on a new approach by Digne, Michel and himself, Bessis has…

Let $M_K$ be the 2-fold branched cover of a knot $K in $S^3$. If $H_1(M_K) = {\bf Z}_3 \oplus {\bf Z}_{3^{2i}} \oplus G$ where 3 does not divide the order of $G$ then $K$ is not of order 4 in the concordance group. This obstruction detects…

We classify Nichols algebras of irreducible Yetter-Drinfeld modules over groups such that the underlying rack is braided and the homogeneous component of degree three of the Nichols algebra satisfies a given inequality. This assumption…

It is well known that central extensions of a group G correspond to 2-cocycles on G. Cocycles can be used to construct extensions of G-graded algebras via a version of the Drinfeld twist introduced by Majid. We show how 2-cocycles can be…

This paper is the first part of a series of papers aimed at improving the classification by Formanek of the irreducible representations of Artin braid groups of small dimension. In this paper we classify all the irreducible complex…

We show that the morphisms from the braid group with n strands in the mapping class group of a surface with a possible non empty boundary, assuming that its genus is smaller or equal to n/2 are either cyclic morphisms (their images are…

We give an alternative presentation of braided monoidal categories. Instead of the usual associativity and braiding we have just one constraint (the b-structure). In the unital case, the coherence conditions for a b-structure are shown to…

Following the general theory of categorified quantum groups developed by the author previously (arxiv:2304.07398), we construct the 2-Drinfel'd double associated to a finite group $N=G_0$. For $N=\mathbb{Z}_2$, we explicitly compute the…