Quantum equations for knots
Abstract
This paper contains linear systems of equations which can distinguish knots without knot invariants. Let be the topological moduli space of all n-component string links and such that a fixed projection into the plane is an immersion. If a string link is the product of some string link diagram and the parallel n-cable of a framed long knot diagram , then there is a canonical arc in , defined by pushing through the n-cable of . In this paper we apply the combinatorial 1-cocycles from the HOMFLYPT and Kauffman polynomials in with values in the corresponding skein modules to this canonical arc in . Some of the 1-cocycles lead to linear systems of equations in the skein modules, for each couple of diagrams and . If the system has no solution in the Laurent polynomials then and represent different knots. We give first examples where we distinguish knots without any knot invariants. In particular, we distinguish the knot from its mirror image with equations coming from the HOMFLYPT polynomial. Notice that the knot and its mirror image share the same HOMFLYPT polynomial. On the other hand, each solution of the system gives rather fine information about any regular isotopy which connects with .
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2509.08423,
title = {Quantum equations for knots},
author = {Thomas Fiedler and Butian Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.08423},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
45 pages, more examples are given