Related papers: The Ropelength of Complex Knots

The main open problem in geometric knot theory is to provide a tabulation of knots based on an energy criterion, with the goal of presenting this tabulation in terms of global energy minimisers within isotopy classes, often referred to as…

A knot is a circle piecewise-linearly embedded into the 3-sphere. The topology of a knot is intimately related to that of its exterior, which is the complement of an open regular neighborhood of the knot. Knots are typically encoded by…

This project explores the mathematical study of knots and links in topology, focusing on differentiating between the two-component Unlink and the Hopf Link using a computational tool named LINKAGE. LINKAGE employs the linking number,…

Simulations in which a globular ring polymer with delocalized knots is separated in two interacting loops by a slipping link, or in two non-interacting globuli by a wall with a hole, show how the minimal crossing number of the knots…

Frequently, knots are enumerated by their crossing number. However, the number of knots with crossing number $c$ grows exponentially with $c$, and to date computer-assisted proofs can only classify diagrams up to around twenty crossings.…

The maximum length of the shortest path from a leaf to the root of a skein tree for knots and links gives a measure of the complexity of computing link polynomials by the skein relation (the Jones polynomial, the Alexander-Conway…

We introduce an unknotting-type number of knot projections that gives an upper bound of the crosscap number of knots. We determine the set of knot projections with the unknotting-type number at most two, and this result implies classical…

There are 352.2 million prime knots in the 3-sphere with at most 19 crossings. We study which of these knots are slice, in both the smooth and topological categories. While no algorithm is known for deciding whether a given knot is slice in…

We define the concordance crosscap number of a knot as the minimum crosscap number among all the knots concordant to the knot. The four-dimensional crosscap number is the minimum first Betti number of non-orientable surfaces smoothly…

The warping degree of an oriented knot diagram is the minimal number of crossings which we meet as an under-crossing first when we travel along the diagram from a fixed point. The warping degree of a knot projection is the minimal value of…

The lattice stick number $s_L(K)$ of a knot $K$ is defined to be the minimal number of straight line segments required to construct a stick presentation of $K$ in the cubic lattice. In this paper, we find an upper bound on the lattice stick…

We study a family of scale-invariant $p$-densities of knot types in $R^3$, defined as the ratio of length to an $L^p$-type spread of pairwise distances along a curve. The first point of the paper is that the unconstrained theory has a…

It is known that any surface knot can be transformed to an unknotted surface knot or a surface knot which has a diagram with no triple points by a finite number of 1-handle additions. The minimum number of such 1-handles is called the…

One measure of geometrical complexity of a spatial curve is the number of crossings in a planar projection of the curve. For $N$-noded ring polymers with a fixed knot type, we evaluate numerically the average of the crossing number over…

Tying knots and linking microscopic loops of polymers, macromolecules, or defect lines in complex materials is a challenging task for material scientists. We demonstrate the knotting of microscopic topological defect lines in chiral nematic…

Numerical simulations indicate that there exist conformations of the unknot, tied on a finite piece of rope, entangled in such a manner, that they cannot be disentangled to the torus conformation without cutting the rope. The simplest…

The statistical mechanics of a long knotted collapsed polymer is determined by a free-energy with a knot-dependent subleading term, which is linked to the length of the shortest polymer that can hold such knot. The only other parameter…

In this paper, we study a geometric/topological measure of knots and links called the nullification number. The nullification of knots/links is believed to be biologically relevant. For example, in DNA topology, one can intuitively regard…

We give two different, statistically consistent definitions of the length l of a prime knot tied into a polymer ring. In the good solvent regime the polymer is modelled by a self avoiding polygon of N steps on cubic lattice and l is the…

The ribbon number of a knot is the minimum number of ribbon singularities among all ribbon disks bounded by that knot. In this paper, we build on the systematic treatment of this knot invariant initiated in recent work of Friedl, Misev, and…