Related papers: The Braids on your Blanket

These are Lecture Notes of a course given by the author at the French-Spanish School "Tresses in Pau", held in Pau (France) in October 2009. It is basically an introduction to distinct approaches and techniques that can be used to show…

Using the Huynh and Le quantum determinant description of the colored Jones polynomial, we construct a new combinatorial description of the colored Jones polynomial in terms of walks along a braid. We then use this description to show that…

Any knot $K$ in genus-$1$ $1$-bridge position can be moved by isotopy to lie in a union of $n$ parallel tori tubed by $n-1$ tubes so that $K$ intersects each tube in two spanning arcs, which we call a leveling of the position. The minimal…

We unify and generalize several approaches to constructing braid group representations from finite groups, using iterated twisted tensor products. Our results hint at a relationship between the braidings on the $G$-gaugings of a pointed…

We generalize presentations of the fundamental group of discriminant complements and arrive at a class of presentations associated naturally with words in the free monoid of the alphabet $\sigma_1,\dots,\sigma_{n-1}$. Our study addresses…

In this article we shall give an account of certain developments in knot theory which followed upon the discovery of the Jones polynomial in 1984. The focus of our account will be recent glimmerings of understanding of the topological…

We show that branched coverings of surfaces of large enough genus arise as characteristic maps of braided surfaces that is, lift to embeddings in the product of the surface with $\mathbb R^2$. This result is nontrivial already for…

This paper is a very brief introduction to knot theory. It describes knot coloring by quandles, the fundamental group of a knot complement, and handle-decompositions of knot complements.

We investigate the rational cohomology of the quotient of (generalized) braid groups by the commutator subgroup of the pure braid groups. We provide a combinatorial description of it using isomorphism classes of certain families of graphs.…

In the present paper, we define an invariant of free links valued in a free product of some copies of $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$. In \cite{Ma2} the second named author constructed a connection between classical braid group and group presentation…

We introduce a method of computing biquandle brackets of oriented knots and links using a type of decorated trivalent spatial graphs we call trace diagrams. We identify algebraic conditions on the biquandle bracket coefficients for moving…

A large class of positive finite presentations of the braid groups is found and studied. It is shown that no presentations but known exceptions in this class have the property that equivalent braid words are also equivalent under positive…

Although most knots are nonalternating, modern research in knot theory seems to focus on alternating knots. We consider here nonalternating knots and their properties. Specifically, we show certain classes of knots have nontrivial Jones…

We show that the problem of constructing a real rational knot of a reasonably low degree can be reduced to an algebraic problem involving the pure braid group: expressing an associated element of the pure braid group in terms of the…

We consider knot theories possessing a {\em parity}: each crossing is decreed {\em odd} or {\em even} according to some universal rule. If this rule satisfies some simple axioms concerning the behaviour under Reidemeister moves, this leads…

The knot group is the fundamental group of a knot or link complement. A necessary and sufficient conditions for a group to be realized as the knot group of some link was provided. This result was shown using the closed braid method.…

We give a simple and practical algorithm to compute the link polynomials, which are defined according to the skein relations. Our method is based on a new total order on the set of all braid representatives. As by-product a new complete…

We present a topological interpretation of knot and braid contact homology in degree zero, in terms of cords and skein relations. This interpretation allows us to extend the knot invariant to embedded graphs and higher-dimensional knots. We…

Given a knot or link in the handlebody, $H_g$, of genus $g$ we prove that it can always be represented as the plat closure of a braid in $H_g$. We further establish the Hilden braid group for the handlebody, as a subgroup of the mixed braid…

We study braid diagrams with a minimal number of crossings. Such braid diagrams correspond to geodesic words for the braid groups with standard Artin generators. We prove that a diagram of a homogeneous braid is minimal if and only if it is…