Related papers: The slicing number of a knot
Given a knot in the three-sphere, is it possible to unknot it by performing a single twist, and if so, what are the possible linking numbers of such a twist? We develop obstructions to unknotting using a twist of a specified linking number.…
In this report, I will start by first giving a brief introduction on knots to build some intuition before beginning the more rigorous review in the Literature Review section. There, I will define knot equivalence, the Jones polynomial…
In the 60's Levine proved that if $R$ is a slice knot, then on any genus $g$ Seifert surface for $R$ there is a $g$ component link $J$, called a derivative of $R$, on which the Seifert form vanishes. Many subsequent obstructions to $R$…
We construct an infinite collection of knots with the property that any knot in this family has $n$-string essential tangle decompositions for arbitrarily high $n$.
As proved by Hedden and Ording, there exist knots for which the Ozsvath-Szabo and Rasmussen smooth concordance invariants, tau and s, differ. The Hedden-Ording examples have nontrivial Alexander polynomials and are not topologically slice.…
Introducing a way to modify knots using $n$-trivial rational tangles, we show that knots with given values of Vassiliev invariants of bounded degree can have arbitrary unknotting number (extending a recent result of Ohyama, Taniyama and…
Given a real, symmetric matrix S, we define the slice through S as being the connected component containing S of two orbits under conjugation: the first by the orthogonal group, and the second by the upper triangular group. We describe some…
Given any oriented link diagram, one can construct knot invariants using skein relations. Usually such a skein relation contains three or four terms. In this paper, the author introduces several new ways to smooth a crossings, and uses a…
The algebraic genus of a knot is an invariant that arises when one considers upper bounds for the topological slice genus coming from Freedman's theorem that Alexander polynomial one knots are topologically slice. This paper develops…
We investigate the behaviour of Rasmussen's invariant $s$ under the sharp operation on knots and obtain a lower bound for the sharp unknotting number. This bound leads us to an interesting move that transforms arbitrary knots into…
In the present paper we extend the definition of slice-torus invariant to links. We prove a few properties of the newly-defined slice-torus link invariants: the behaviour under crossing change, a slice genus bound, an obstruction to strong…
We define an operation on homology ${B}^4$ which we call an $n$-twist annulus modification. We give a new construction of smoothly slice knots and exotically slice knots via $n$-twist annulus modifications. As an application, we present a…
The paper introduces Slope Conjecture which relates the degree of the Jones polynomial of a knot and its parallels with the slopes of incompressible surfaces in the knot complement. More precisely, we introduce two knot invariants, the…
In this paper we use artificial neural networks to predict and help compute the values of certain knot invariants. In particular, we show that neural networks are able to predict when a knot is quasipositive with a high degree of accuracy.…
A knotted ribbon is one of physical aspect of a knot. A folded ribbon knot is a depiction of a knot obtained by folding a long and thin rectangular strip to become flat. The ribbonlength of a knot type can be defined as the minimum length…
We study three knot invariants related to smoothly immersed disks in the four-ball. These are the four-ball crossing number, which is the minimal number of normal double points of such a disk bounded by a given knot; the slicing number,…
In the present paper, we construct a simple invariant which provides a sliceness obstruction for {\em free knots}. This obstruction provides a new point of view to the problem of studying cobordisms of curves immersed in 2-surfaces, a…
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 unknotting number of a knot is the minimum number of crossings one must change to turn that knot into the unknot. We work with a generalization of unknotting number due to Mathieu-Domergue, which we call the untwisting number. The…
A knot k is called ``strongly (n-1)-trivial.'' if there exists a projection of k, such that one can choose n crossings of the projection with the property that making the crossing changes corresponding to any of the $2^{n}-1$ nontrivial…