Related papers: Gordian Unknots
A horospherical torus about a cusp of a hyperbolic manifold inherits a Euclidean similarity structure, called a cusp shape. We bound the change in cusp shape when the hyperbolic structure of the manifold is deformed via cone deformation…
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 prove the perhaps surprising result that given any three polygonal unknots in $\R^3$, then we may form the Borromean rings out of them through rigid motions of $\R^3$ applied to the individual components together with possible scaling of…
A classical knot is described by a one-stroke trajectory with entanglements of a string. The replica method appears as a powerful tool in statistical mechanics for a polymer or self-avoiding walk. We consider this replica N to 0 limit in…
We show that the problem of recognizing that a knot diagram represents a specific torus knot, or any torus knot at all, is in the complexity class ${\sf NP} \cap {\sf co\text{-}NP}$, assuming the generalized Riemann hypothesis. We also show…
A veritable zoo of different knots is seen in the ensemble of looped polymer chains, whether created computationally or observed in vitro. At short loop lengths, the spectrum of knots is dominated by the trivial knot (unknot). The…
For a knot or link K, let L(K) be the ropelength of K and Cr(K) be the crossing number of K. In this paper, we show that there exists a constant a>0 such that L(K) is bounded above by a Cr(K) ln^5 (Cr(K)) for any knot K. This result shows…
Physical knots and links are one-dimensional submanifolds of R^3 with fixed length and thickness. We show that isotopy classes in this category can differ from those of classical knot and link theory. In particular we exhibit a Gordian…
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…
Knots are entangled structures that cannot be untangled without a cut. Topological stability of knots is one of the many examples of their important properties that can be used in information storage and transfer. Knot dynamics is important…
This work presents KnotDLO, a method for one-handed Deformable Linear Object (DLO) knot tying that is robust to occlusion, repeatable for varying rope initial configurations, interpretable for generating motion policies, and requires no…
We show that there are links whose individual components are concordant to the unknot, but which are not concordant to any link with unknotted components. We give examples in the topological category, and examples in the smooth category…
This manuscript introduces a new framework for the study of knots by exploring the neighborhood of knot embeddings in the space of simple open and closed curves in 3-space. The latter gives rise to a knotoid spectrum, which determines the…
We establish upper bounds for the complexity of Seifert fibered manifolds with nonempty boundary. In particular, we obtain potentially sharp bounds on the complexity of torus knot complements.
Knots are familiar entities that appear at a captivating nexus of art, technology, mathematics, and science. As topologically stable objects within field theories, they have been speculatively proposed as explanations for diverse persistent…
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 define an elementary relatively $\mathbb Z/4$ graded Lagrangian-Floer chain complex for restricted immersions of compact 1-manifolds into the pillowcase, and apply it to the intersection diagram obtained by taking traceless $SU(2)$…
Under certain topological assumptions, we show that two monotone Lagrangian submanifolds embedded in the standard symplectic vector space with the same monotonicity constant cannot link one another and that, individually, their smooth knot…
This paper explores the problem of unknotting closed braids and classical knots in mathematical knot theory. We apply evolutionary computation methods to learn sequences of moves that simplify knot diagrams, and show that this can be…
Noting that cycle diagrams of permutations visually resemble grid diagrams used to depict knots and links in topology, we consider the knot (or link) obtained from the cycle diagram of a permutation. We show that the permutations which…