Related papers: Shadows of 2-knots and complexity
We define and study branched shadows of 4-manifolds as a combination of branched spines of 3-manifolds and Turaev's shadows. We use these objects to combinatorially represent 4-manifolds equipped with $Spin^c$-structures and homotopy…
We define a knot invariant and a 2-knot invariant from any finite categorical group. We calculate an explicit example for the Spun Trefoil.
We lift the characteristic-2 totally twisted Khovanov homology of Roberts and Jaeger to a theory with integer coefficients. The result is a complex computing reduced odd Khovanov homology for knots. This complex is equivalent to a…
We review the Reshetikhin-Turaev approach to construction of non-compact knot invariants involving R-matrices associated with infinite-dimensional representations, primarily those made from Faddeev's quantum dilogarithm. The corresponding…
We extend knot contact homology to a theory over the ring $\mathbb{Z}[\lambda^{\pm 1},\mu^{\pm 1}]$, with the invariant given topologically and combinatorially. The improved invariant, which is defined for framed knots in $S^3$ and can be…
Ozsvath and Szabo have defined a knot concordance invariant tau that bounds the 4-ball genus of a knot. Here we discuss shortcuts to its computation. We include examples of Alexander polynomial one knots for which the invariant is…
It was shown by Goussarov that Vassiliev invariants are polynomials in the gleams for a fixed Turaev shadow. In this paper we show that Vassiliev invariants are almost characterized by this fact. We also prove that the space of knot…
A conjecture of Shumakovitch states that every nontrivial knot has 2-torsion in its Khovanov homology. We show that if a knot $K$ has no 2-torsion in its Khovanov homology, then the rank of its reduced Khovanov homology is minimal among all…
In this paper we introduce the notion of a spherical knot mosaic where a knot is represented by tiling the surface of a topological 2-sphere with 11 canonical knot mosaic tiles and show this gives rise to several novel knot (and link)…
In 1999, Khovanov showed that a link invariant known as the Jones polynomial is the Euler characteristic of a homology theory. The knot categorification problem is to find a general construction of knot homology groups, and to explain their…
Ng constructed an invariant of knots in ${\mathbb{R}}^3$, a combinatorial knot contact homology. Extending his study, we construct an invariant of surface-knots in ${\mathbb{R}}^4$ using diagrams in ${\mathbb{R}}^3$.
We prove a minimum degree version of the Kruskal--Katona theorem: given $d\ge 1/4$ and a triple system $F$ on $n$ vertices with minimum degree at least $d\binom n2$, we obtain asymptotically tight lower bounds for the size of its shadow.…
We find further evidence for the conjecture relating large N Chern-Simons theory on S^3 with topological string on the resolved conifold geometry by showing that the Wilson loop observable of a simple knot on S^3 (for any representation)…
This work solves a 28-year conjecture by showing that two major invariants of smooth 4-manifolds, the shadow model (motivated by statistical mechanics [Tur91]) and the simplicial Crane-Yetter model (motivated by topological quantum field…
We show that the problem of recognizing that a knot diagram represents a specific torus knot, or any torus knot at all, is in the complexity class ${\sf NP} \cap {\sf co\text{-}NP}$, assuming the generalized Riemann hypothesis. We also show…
It has been folklore for several years in the knot theory community that certain integrals on configuration space, originally motivated by perturbation theory for the Chern-Simons field theory, converge and yield knot invariants. This was…
A knot invariant is called skein if it is determined by a finite number of skein relations. In the paper we discuss some basic properties of skein invariants and mention some known examples of skein invariants.
Given a group endowed with a Z/2-valued morphism we associate a Gauss diagram theory, and show that for a particular choice of the group these diagrams encode faithfully virtual knots on a given arbitrary surface. This theory contains all…
We show that the quantum covering group associated to osp(1|2n) has an associated colored quantum knot invariant \`a la Reshetikhin-Turaev, which specializes to a quantum knot invariant for osp(1|2n), and to the usual quantum knot invariant…
Recently, Kashaev and the first author constructed an $R$-matrix from a Nichols algebra with an automorphism, that leads, via the Reshetikhin--Turaev functor, to a multivariable polynomial invariant of knots. Applying this to a rank 2…