Related papers: Tangle decompositions of alternating link compleme…
Using a new tool called lassos, we establish a new correspondence between cellular link {diagrams} on closed surfaces and equivalence classes of virtual link {diagrams}. This is analogous to a well-known correspondence among the links…
We present an enhanced prime decomposition theorem for knots that gives the isotopy classes of composite knots that can be constructed from a given list of prime factors (allowing for the mirroring and orientation reversing for each…
We prove that a special alternating knot does not decompose as a non-trivial band sum. This restricts concordances from special alternating knots, and we conjecture that special alternating knots are ribbon concordance minimal. We verify…
This is the first in a series of four papers wherein we enumerate all prime alternating knots and links. In this first paper, we introduce four operators on knots and show that, when used according to very simple rules on the prime…
The central discovery of $2d$ conformal theory was holomorphic factorization, which expressed correlation functions through bilinear combinations of conformal blocks, which are easily cut and joined without a need to sum over the entire…
Recently Iltgen, Lewark and Marino introduced the concept of a proper rational tangle replacement and the corresponding notion of the proper rational unknotting number. In this note we derive a version of the Montesinos trick for proper…
We reprove and extend a result of David Krebes (J. Knot Theory Ramif. 8 (1999), 321-352) giving an obstruction to embedding a tangle T into a link L. Closing the tangle up in the two obvious ways gives rise to two links, the numerator and…
This is the third paper in a series devoted to enumerating the prime alternating knots and links. This paper establishes a method for enumerating the prime alternating links. It is shown that one may choose any prime alternating link…
R. F. Williams showed that all knots in the Lorenz template are prime. His proof included the cases where any number of positive twists were added to one of the template's branches. However, Williams does give an example of a composite knot…
In this paper we use 3-manifold techniques to illuminate the structure of the string link monoid. In particular, we give a prime decomposition theorem for string links on two components as well as give necessary conditions for string links…
Families of alternating knots (links) and tangles are studied using as building block the conway defined as the twisting of two strands. The regular representation of knots assumes the projection has the minimal number of overpassings, and…
We prove that if an alternating knot has unknotting number one, then there exists an unknotting crossing in any alternating diagram. This is done by showing that the obstruction to unknotting number one developed by Greene in his work on…
We prove a prime decomposition theorem for string links in a thickened surface. Namely, we prove that any non-braid string link $\ell \subset \Sigma \times I$, where $\Sigma$ is a compact orientable (not necessarily closed) surface other…
Tangles of graphs have been introduced by Robertson and Seymour in the context of their graph minor theory. Tangles may be viewed as describing "k-connected components" of a graph (though in a twisted way). They play an important role in…
We study algebraic tangles as fundamental components in knot theory, developing a systematic approach to classify and tabulate prime tangles using a novel canonical representation. The canonical representation enables us to distinguish…
We establish a characterization of alternating links in terms of definite spanning surfaces. We apply it to obtain a new proof of Tait's conjecture that reduced alternating diagrams of the same link have the same crossing number and writhe.…
Champanerkar and Kofman [1] introduced an innovative method for constructing quasi-alternating links by substituting a quasi-alternating crossing c in a quasi-alternating link with a rational tangle of the same type. This construction was…
We study 2-string free tangle decompositions of knots with tunnel number two. As an application, we construct infinitely many counter-examples to a conjecture in the literature stating that the tunnel number of the connected sum of prime…
Let $\Sigma_0,\Sigma_1$ be closed oriented surfaces. Two oriented knots $K_0 \subset \Sigma_0 \times [0,1]$ and $K_1 \subset \Sigma_1 \times [0,1]$ are said to be (virtually) concordant if there is a compact oriented $3$-manifold $W$ and a…
Conjecture $\mathbb{Z}$ is a knot theoretical equivalent form of the Kervaire Conjecture. We say that a knot have property $\mathbb{Z}$ if it satisfies Conjecture $\mathbb{Z}$ for that specific knot. In this work, we show that alternating…