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Related papers: Alternating links and definite surfaces

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For any link in the 3-sphere, there is a natural lower bound for the unlinking number in terms of the classical signature. We prove that if this lower bound is sharp for a special alternating link $L$, then the unlinking number of $L$ is…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2026-03-25 Duncan McCoy , JungHwan Park

We show that, for an alternating knot, the ratio of the diameter of the set of boundary slopes to the crossing number can be arbitrarily large.

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2019-11-21 Masaharu Ishikawa , Thomas W. Mattman , Kazuya Namiki , Koya Shimokawa

We introduce an invariant of alternating knots and links (called here WRP), namely a pair of integer polynomials associated with their two checkerboard planar graphs from their minimal diagram. We prove that the invariant is well-defined…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2025-05-27 Michal Jablonowski

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…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2024-07-17 Joel Hass , Abigail Thompson , Anastasiia Tsvietkova

This paper presents a new algorithm "A" for constructing Seifert surfaces from n-bridge projections of links. The algorithm produces minimal complexity surfaces for large classes of braids and alternating links. In addition, we consider a…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2008-02-01 Joan E. Licata

We extend the equality-type results of Ito--Takimura and Kindred for the non-orientable genera of alternating knots to the setting of two-component alternating links. We show that, for such links, a unified quantity capturing both…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2026-02-06 Noboru Ito , Nodoka Kawajiri

For classical links Ohyama proved an inequality involving the minimal crossing number and the braid index, then motivated from this Takeda showed an analogous inequality for virtual links. In this paper, we are interested in studying…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2025-11-05 Gustavo Cardoso , Oscar Ocampo

It has been conjectured that the algebraic crossing number of a link is uniquely determined in minimal braid representation. This conjecture is true for many classes of knots and links. The Morton-Franks-Williams inequality gives a lower…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2009-07-07 Keiko Kawamuro

We prove that the genus of the Turaev surface of a link diagram is determined by a graph whose vertices correspond to the boundary components of the maximal alternating regions of the link diagram. Furthermore, we use these graphs to…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2017-03-22 Cody W. Armond , Adam M. Lowrance

For $D$ a reduced alternating surface link diagram, we bound the twist number of $D$ in terms of the coefficients of a polynomial invariant. To this end, we introduce a generalization of the homological Kauffman bracket defined by Krushkal.…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2023-03-22 David A. Will

We point out that the strong slope conjecture implies that the degrees of the colored Jones knot polynomials detect the figure eight knot. Furthermore, we propose a characterization of alternating knots in terms of the Jones period and the…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2020-10-15 Efstratia Kalfagianni

Knot Theory is currently a very broad field. Even a long survey can only cover a narrow area. Here we concentrate on the path from Goeritz matrices to quasi-alternating links. On the way, we often stray from the main road and tell related…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2009-09-08 Jozef H. Przytycki

The study of a certain class of matrix integrals can be motivated by their interpretation as counting objects of knot theory such as alternating prime links, tangles or knots. The simplest such model is studied in detail and allows to…

Mathematical Physics · Physics 2009-09-25 P. Zinn-Justin

Chord diagrams and related enlacement graphs of alternating knots are enhanced to obtain complete invariant graphs including chirality detection. Moreover, the equivalence by common enlacement graph is specified and the neighborhood graph…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Christian Soulie

We study near-alternating links whose diagrams satisfy conditions generalized from the notion of semi-adequate links. We extend many of the results known for adequate knots relating their colored Jones polynomials to the topology of…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2020-04-07 Christine Ruey Shan Lee

A diagonal surface in a link exterior M is a properly embedded, incompressible, boundary incompressible surface which furthermore has the same number of boundary components and same slope on each component of the boundary of M. We derive a…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Jim E. Hoste , Patrick D. Shanahan

The simultaneous crossing number is a new knot invariant which is defined for strongly invertible knots having diagrams with two orthogonal transvergent axes of strong inversions. Because the composition of the two inversions gives a cyclic…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2025-04-16 Christoph Lamm , Michael Eisermann

Edmonds famously proved that every periodic knot of genus g possesses an equivariant Seifert surface of genus g. We show that this is not true if one instead considers nonorientable spanning surfaces of a periodic knot. We demonstrate by…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2021-01-13 Stanislav Jabuka

It is well known that there exist knots with Seifert surfaces of arbitrarily high genus. In this paper, we show the existence of infinitely many knot exteriors where each of which has longitudinal essential surfaces of any positive genus…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2025-08-26 Joao M. Nogueira

Several classical knot invariants, such as the Alexander polynomial, the Levine-Tristram signature and the Blanchfield pairing, admit natural extensions from knots to links, and more generally, from oriented links to so-called colored…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2026-03-04 David Cimasoni , Gaetan Simian