Related papers: When is arc crossing change an unknotting operatio…
In this article we discuss applications of neural networks to recognising knots and, in particular, to the unknotting problem. One of motivations for this study is to understand how neural networks work on the example of a problem for which…
We study relations between unknotting number and crossing number of a spatial embedding of a handcuff-graph and a theta curve. It is well known that for any non-trivial knot $K$ twice the unknotting number of $K$ is less than or equal to…
We define and compare several natural ways to compute the bridge number of a knot diagram. We study bridge numbers of crossing number minimizing diagrams, as well as the behavior of diagrammatic bridge numbers under the connected sum…
We introduce a local move on a link diagram named a region freeze crossing change which is close to a region crossing change, but not the same. We study similarity and difference between region crossing change and region freeze crossing…
An unknotting operation is a local move such that any knot diagram can be transformed into a diagram of the trivial knot by a finite sequence of these operations plus some Reidemeister moves. It is known that for all $n \geq 2$ the…
We present three "hard" diagrams of the unknot. They require (at least) three extra crossings before they can be simplified to the trivial unknot diagram via Reidemeister moves in $\mathbb{S}^2$. Both examples are constructed by applying…
The simultaneous crossing number is a new knot invariant which is defined for strongly invertible knots having diagrams with two orthogonal transvergent axes of strong inversions. Because the composition of the two inversions gives a cyclic…
The combinatorial approach to knot theory treats knots as diagrams modulo Reidemeister moves. Many constructions of knot invariants (e.g., index polynomials, quandle colorings, etc.) use elements of diagrams such as arcs and crossings by…
A {\it stuck knot} is a knot diagram containing designated crossings, called {\it stuck crossings}, whose incident strands are required to remain locally non-separable. These rigidity constraints restrict the allowable ambient isotopies and…
Let K be a knot that has an unknotting tunnel tau. We prove that K admits a strong involution that fixes tau pointwise if and only if K is a two-bridge knot and tau its upper or lower tunnel.
New presentations of a link and a virtual link are introduced and algebraic systems on links and virtual links are constructed respectively. Based on the algebraic systems, Reduction Crossing Algorithms for them are proposed which are used…
Knotoid theory is a generalization of knot theory introduced by Turaev in 2012. In recent years, various invariants of knotoids have been studied. In this paper, we mainly discuss unknotting moves and unknotting numbers of plus-welded…
We have developed a reinforcement learning agent that often finds a minimal sequence of unknotting crossing changes for a knot diagram with up to 200 crossings, hence giving an upper bound on the unknotting number. We have used this to…
We consider a natural model of random knotting- choose a knot diagram at random from the finite set of diagrams with n crossings. We tabulate diagrams with 10 and fewer crossings and classify the diagrams by knot type, allowing us to…
We study symmetric crossing change operations for strongly invertible knots. Our main theorem is that the most natural notion of equivariant unknotting number is not additive under connected sum, in contrast with the longstanding conjecture…
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.…
We show that the following unlinking strategy does not always yield an optimal sequence of crossing changes: first split the link with the minimal number of crossing changes, and then unknot the resulting components.
Introduced recently, an n-crossing is a singular point in a projection of a link at which n strands cross such that each strand travels straight through the crossing. We introduce the notion of an \"ubercrossing projection, a knot…
The (ordinary) unknotting-number of 1-dimensional knots, which is defined by using the crossing-change, is a very basic and important invariant. It is very natural to consider the `unknotting-number' associated with other local-moves on…
This note has an experimental nature and contains no new theorems. We introduce certain moves for classical knot diagrams that for all the very many examples we have tested them on give a monotonic complete simplification. A complete…