Related papers: Trefoils and hexafoils in 3-braids
We define invariants of braids rather than invariants of conjugacy classes of braids. For any pure three-braid we give effective upper and lower bounds for these invariants. This is done in terms of a natural syllable decomposition of the…
Knots and links which are closed 3-braids are a very special class. Like 2-bridge knots and links, they are simple enough to admit a complete classification. At the same time they are rich enough to serve as a source of examples on which,…
Using the band representation of the 3-strand braid group, it is shown that the genus of 3-braid links can be read off their skein polynomial. Some applications are given, in particular a simple proof of Morton's conjectured inequality and…
We prove the meridional rank conjecture for twisted links and arborescent links associated to bipartite trees with even weights. These links are substantial generalizations of pretzels and two-bridge links, respectively. Lower bounds on…
Alternating-sign Hopf plumbing along a tree yields fibered alternating links whose homological monodromy is, up to a sign, conjugate to some alternating-sign Coxeter transformation. Exploiting this tie, we obtain results about the location…
Motivated by an observation of Dehornoy, we study the roots of Alexander polynomials of knots and links that are closures of positive 3-strand braids. We give experimental data on random such braids and find that the roots exhibit marked…
We argue that various braid group actions on triangulated categories should be extended to projective actions of the category of braid cobordisms and illustrate how this works in examples. We also construct actions of both the affine braid…
To a closed braid in a solid torus we associate a trace graph in a thickened torus in such a way that closed braids are isotopic if and only if their trace graphs can be related by trihedral and tetraherdal moves. For closed braids with a…
The moduli dependence of string loop threshold corrections to gauge coupling constants is investigated for those ${\bf Z}_N$ Coxeter orbifolds with the property that some twisted sectors have fixed planes for which the six-torus ${\bf T}_6$…
This paper investigates the relationship between the signature and the crossing number of knots and links. We refine existing theorems and provide a comprehensive classification of links with specific properties, particularly those with…
Twisted torus knots and links are given by twisting adjacent strands of a torus link. They are geometrically simple and contain many examples of the smallest volume hyperbolic knots. Many are also Lorenz links. We study the geometry of…
The cobordism distance between knots, d(K,J), equals the four-genus g_4(K # -J). We consider d(K,K^r), where K^r is the reverse of K. It is elementary that 0 \le d(K,K^r) \le 2g_4(K) and it is known that there are knots K for which d(K,K^r)…
We construct efficient topological cobordisms between torus links and large connected sums of trefoil knots. As an application, we show that the signature invariant $\sigma_\omega$ at $\omega=\zeta_6$ takes essentially minimal values on…
Khovanov homology is a powerful invariant of oriented links that categorifies the Jones polynomial. Nevertheless, computing Khovanov homology of a given link remains challenging in general with current techniques. In this work we focus on…
We consider the question of when a rational homology 3-sphere is rational homology cobordant to a connected sum of lens spaces. We prove that every rational homology cobordism class in the subgroup generated by lens spaces is represented by…
Several finite complex reflection groups have a braid group which is isomorphic to a torus knot group. The reflection group is obtained from the torus knot group by declaring meridians to have order $k$ for some $k\geq 2$, and meridians are…
The contents of this 6-page paper have been subsumed into the 13-page paper, "A note on closed 3-braids", arXiv:0802.1072 [math.GT]. This paper is correct, but contains less information than the new one. The topological classification of…
We use unoriented versions of instanton and knot Floer homology to prove inequalities involving the Euler characteristic and the number of local maxima appearing in unorientable cobordisms, which mirror results of a recent paper by Juhasz,…
We construct invariants of colored links using equivariant bordism groups of Conner and Floyd. We employ this bordism invariant to find the first examples of topological vortex knots, the knot structure of which is protected from decaying…
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…