Related papers: Everywhere Equivalent 3-Braids
To each link $L$ in $S^3$ we associate a collection of certain labelled directed trees, called width trees. We interpret some classical and new topological link invariants in terms of these width trees and show how the geometric structure…
A zigzag in a map (a $2$-cell embedding of a connected graph in a connected closed $2$-dimensional surface) is a cyclic sequence of edges satisfying the following conditions: 1) any two consecutive edges lie on the same face and have a…
Grid diagrams encode useful geometric information about knots in S^3. In particular, they can be used to combinatorially define the knot Floer homology of a knot K in S^3, and they have a straightforward connection to Legendrian…
The 3-Decomposition Conjecture states that every connected cubic graph can be decomposed into a spanning tree, a 2-regular subgraph and a matching. We show that this conjecture holds for the class of connected plane cubic graphs.
In this work we present a complete (no misses, no duplicates) census for closed, connected, orientable and prime 3-manifolds induced by plane graphs with a bipartition of its edge set (blinks) up to $k=9$ edges. Blinks form a universal…
The combinatorial approach to knot theory treats knots as diagrams modulo Reidemeister moves. Many constructions of knot invariants (e.g., index polynomials, quandle colorings, etc.) use elements of diagrams such as arcs and crossings by…
We first prove that, infinitely many pairs of trivial knot diagrams that are transformed into each other by applying Reidemeister moves I and III are NOT transformed into each other by a sequence of the Reidemeister moves I that increase…
There exists a simplified Bar-Natan Khovanov complex for open 2-braids. The Khovanov cohomology of a knot diagram made by gluing tangles of this type is therefore often amenable to calculation. We lift this idea to the level of the…
A virtual link may be defined as an equivalence class of diagrams, or alternatively as a stable equivalence class of links in thickened surfaces. We prove that a minimal crossing virtual link diagram has minimal genus across representatives…
A weaving knot is an alternating knot whose minimal diagram is a closed braid of a lattice-like pattern. In this paper, the warping degree of a braid diagram is defined, and upper bounds of the unknotting number and the region unknotting…
Determining when two knots are equivalent (more precisely isotopic) is a fundamental problem in topology. Here we formulate this problem in terms of Predicate Calculus, using the formulation of knots in terms of braids and some basic…
We study collections of planar curves that yield diagrams for all knots. In particular, we show that a very special class called potholder curves carries all knots. This has implications for realizing all knots and links as special types of…
To an oriented link in a solid torus we associate a trace graph in a thickened torus in such a way that links are isotopic if and only if their trace graphs can be related by moves of finitely many standard types. The key ingredient is a…
The Reidemeister theorem states that any link in $3$-space can be encoded by a diagram (a suitably decorated projection) on a plane, and provides a finite set of combinatorial moves relating two diagrams of the same link up to isotopy. In…
Knot and link diagrams are projections of one or more 3-dimensional simple closed curves into $R^2$, such that no more than two points project to the same point in $R^2$. These diagrams are drawings of 4-regular plane multigraphs. Knots are…
Every link in R^3 can be represented by a one-vertex ribbon graph. We prove a Markov type theorem on this subset of link diagrams.
A tree is called k-ended tree if it has at most k leaves, where a leaf is a vertex of degree one. In this paper we prove that every 3-regular connected graph with n vertices such that n is greater than 8 has spanning sub tree with at most…
Kuperberg [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 3 (2003) 587-591] has shown that a virtual knot corresponds (up to generalized Reidemeister moves) to a unique embedding in a thichened surface of minimal genus. If a virtual knot diagram is equivalent to a…
We give a sufficient condition for an almost alternating link diagram to represent a non-splittable link. The main theorem gives us a way to see if a given almost alternating link diagram represents a splittable link without increasing…
Ozsv\'ath and Szab\'o conjectured that knot Floer homology detects fibred links. We will verify this conjecture for closed 3-braids, by classifying fibred closed 3-braids. In particular, given a nontrivial closed 3-braid, either it is…