Related papers: Obstructions to trivializing a knot
In this paper we describe braid equivalence for knots and links in a 3-manifold $M$ obtained by rational surgery along a framed link in $S^3$. We first prove a sharpened version of the Reidemeister theorem for links in $M$. We then give…
This article is a survey on Lorenz knots. We describe the original construction, prove several classical properties, in particular the fact that the closure of a positive braid is a fibered knot, and describe Ghys'correspondance between…
Twisted knot theory, introduced by M.O.Bourgoin, is a generalization of virtual knot theory. It is easily shown that any virtual knot can be deformed into a trivial knot by a finite sequence of generalized Reidemeister moves and two…
In a topological description of elementary matter proposed by Bilson-Thompson, the leptons and quarks of a single generation, together with the electroweak gauge bosons, are represented as elements of the framed braid group of three…
If a rectangular diagram represents the trivial knot, then it can be deformed into the trivial rectangular diagram with only four edges by a finite sequence of merge operations and exchange operations, without increasing the number of…
We associate to every positive braid a braid monodromy group, generalizing the geometric monodromy group of an isolated plane curve singularity. If the closure of the braid is a knot, we identify the corresponding group with a framed…
We show that if a classical knot diagram satisfies a certain combinatorial condition then it is minimal with respect to the number of classical crossings. This statement is proved by using the Kauffman bracket and the construction of atoms…
The theory of the Kauffman bracket, which describes the Jones polynomial as a sum over closed circles formed by the planar resolution of vertices in a knot diagram, can be straightforwardly lifted from sl(2) to sl(N) at arbitrary N -- but…
The topological underpinnings are presented for a new algorithm which answers the question: `Is a given knot the unknot?' The algorithm uses the braid foliation technology of Bennequin and of Birman and Menasco. The approach is to consider…
In [3] we constructed the parity-biquandle bracket valued in {\em pictures} (linear combinations of $4$-valent graphs). We gave no example of classical links such that the parity-biquandle bracket of which is not trivial. In the present…
Braid groups are an important and flexible tool used in several areas of science, such as Knot Theory (Alexander's theorem), Mathematical Physics (Yang-Baxter's equation) and Algebraic Geometry (monodromy invariants). In this note we will…
The aim of this article is to study the existence of certain reducible, metabelian representations of knot groups into $\mathrm{SL}(n,\mathbf{C})$ which generalise the representations studied previously by G.~Burde and G.~de Rham. Under…
Twisted torus links are given by twisting a subset of strands on a closed braid representative of a torus link. T--links are a natural generalization, given by repeated positive twisting. We establish a one-to-one correspondence between…
In this paper we construct a faithful representation of the mapping class group of the genus two surface into a group of matrices over the complex numbers. Our starting point is the Lawrence-Krammer representation of the braid group B_n,…
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…
This thesis consists of three self-contained chapters. The first two concern quantum invariants of links and three manifolds and the third contains results on the word problem for link groups. In chapter 1 we relate the tree part of the…
We develop a calculus for diagrams of knotted objects. We define Arrow presentations, which encode the crossing informations of a diagram into arrows in a way somewhat similar to Gauss diagrams, and more generally w-tree presentations,…
Minimum braids are a complete invariant of knots and links. This paper defines minimum braids, describes how they can be generated, presents tables for knots up to ten crossings and oriented links up to nine crossings, and uses minimum…
Twisted knot theory introduced by M. Bourgoin is a generalization of knot theory. It leads us to the notion of twisted virtual braids. In this paper we show theorems for twisted links corresponding to the Alexander theorem and the Markov…
Choose any oriented link type X and closed braid representatives X[+], X[-] of X, where X[-] has minimal braid index among all closed braid representatives of X. The main result of this paper is a `Markov theorem without stabilization'. It…