A famous result of Bennequin states that for any braid representative of the unknot the Bennequin number is negative. We will extend this result to all n-trivial closed n-braids. This is a class of infinitely many knots closed under taking mirror images. Our proof relies on a non-standard parametrization of the Homfly polynomial.
We prove that a nicely fibered link (by which we mean the binding of an open book) in a tight contact manifold $(M,ξ)$ with zero Giroux torsion has a transverse representative realizing the Bennequin bound if and only if the contact structure it supports (since it is also the binding of an open book) is $ξ.$ This gives a geometric reason for the non-sharpness of the Bennequin bound for fibered links. We also note that this allows the classification, up to contactomorphism, of maximal self-linking number links in these knot types. Moreover, in the standard tight contact structure on $S^3$ we cl…
For a null-homologous transverse link $\mathcal T$ in a general contact manifold with an open book, we explore strongly quasipositive braids and Bennequin surfaces. We define the defect $δ(\mathcal T)$ of the Bennequin-Eliashberg inequality. We study relations between $δ(\mathcal T)$ and minimal genus Bennequin surfaces of $\mathcal T$. In particular, in the disk open book case, under some large fractional Dehn twist coefficient assumption, we show that $δ(\mathcal T)=N$ if and only if $\mathcal T$ is the boundary of a Bennequin surface with exactly $N$ negatively twisted bands. That is, the B…
We show that any knot which is smoothly the closure of a 3-braid cannot be Lagrangian concordant to and from the maximum Thurston-Bennequin Legendrian unknot except the unknot itself. Our obstruction comes from drawing the Weinstein handlebody diagrams of particular symplectic fillings of cyclic branched double covers of knots in $S^3$. We use the Legendrian contact homology differential graded algebra of the links in these diagrams to compute the symplectic homology of these fillings to derive a contradiction. As a corollary, we find an infinite family of contact manifolds which are rational …
Using the recent Gauss diagram formulas for Vassiliev invariants of Polyak-Viro-Fiedler and combining these formulas with the Bennequin inequality, we prove several inequalities for positive knots relating their Vassiliev invariants, genus and degrees of the Jones polynomial. As a consequence, we prove that for any of the polynomials of Alexander/Conway, Jones, HOMFLY, Brandt-Lickorish-Millett-Ho and Kauffman there are only finitely many positive knots with the same polynomial and no positive knot with trivial polynomial. We also discuss an extension of the Bennequin inequality, showing that t…
A flat plumbing basket is a surface consisting a disk and finitely many bands which are contained in distinct pages of the trivial open book decomposition of $\mathbf{S}^{3}$. In this paper, we construct a Legendrian link from a flat plumbing basket, and we describe a relation among the self-linking number, the Thurston-Bennequin number and the flat plumbing basket number of the link. As a corollary, we determine the flat plumbing basket numbers of torus links.
This is a review article on the Bennequin-Birman-Menasco machinery for studying embedded incompressible surfaces in 3-space via their `braid foliations'. Two cases are investigated: case (1) The surface has non-empty boundary; the boundary is a knot or link which is represented as a closed braid, Case (2) The surface is closed, but it lies in the complement of a knot or link which is represented as a closed braid. The main results in the area are established with full proofs, in a systematic fashion, with an eye toward making them accessible to the beginning reader. There are some new contribu…
We show that every trivial 3-strand braid diagram contains a disk, defined as a ribbon ending in opposed crossings. Under a convenient algebraic form, the result extends to every Artin--Tits group of dihedral type, but it fails to extend to braids with 4 strands and more. The proof uses a partition of the Cayley graph and a continuity argument.
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 the knot as a closed braid, and to use the fact that a knot is unknotted if and only if it is the boundary of a disc with a combinatorial foliation. The main problems which are solved in this paper are: how to systematically enumerate combinatorial braid foliations of a disc; how to verify whether a combinatorial foliation can be realized by an embedded disc…
We show that a non-trivial, non-central normal subgroup of the braid groups contains a braid whose closure is a hyperbolic knot with arbitrary large genus. This shows that non-faithfulness of a quantum representation implies that the corresponding quantum invariant fails to detect the unknot. The proof utilizes the Dehornoy ordering of the braid groups.
We use a variation on the commutator collection process to characterize those pure braids which become trivial when any one strand is deleted, or, more generally, those pure braids which become trivial when all the strands in any one of a list of sets of strands is deleted.
A generalization of the topological fundamental group is developed in order to exhibit a topologically complete braid group containing Artin's braid group on infinitely many strands with respect to the following notion of convergence: A sequence of braids b(n) converges to the trivial braid iff for each M>0 eventually the first M strands of b(n) are trivial.
Dehn twists around simple closed curves in oriented surfaces satisfy the braid relations. This gives rise to a group theoretic from the braid group to the mapping class group. We prove here that this map is trivial in stable homology with any trivial coefficients. In particular this proves an old conjecture of J. Harer. The main tool is categorical delooping. In an appendix we discuss geometrically defined homomorphisms from the braid to the mapping class group.
We address the question: Does there exist a non-trivial knot with a trivial Jones polynomial? To find such a knot, it is almost certainly sufficient to find a non-trivial braid on four strands in the kernel of the Burau representation. I will describe a computer algorithm to search for such a braid.
We construct the first combinatorial 1-cocycle with values in the $ \mathbb{Z} [x,x^{-1}]$-module of isotopy classes of singular long knots in 3-space with a signed planar double point, and which represents a non trivial cohomology class in the topological moduli space of long knots. It can be interpreted as an invariant with values in a $ \mathbb{Z} [x,x^{-1}]$-module generated by 3-manifolds for each element of infinite order of the mapping class group of the complement of a satellite knot in $S^3$. The 1-cocycle seems to be trivial on all loops for long knots which are not satellites but it…
The recent proof by Bigelow and Krammer that the braid groups are linear opens the possibility of applications to the study of knots and links. It was proved by the first author and Menasco that any closed braid representative of the unknot can be systematically simplified to a round planar circle by a sequence of exchange moves and reducing moves. In this paper we establish connections between the faithfulness of the Krammer-Lawrence representation and the problem of recognizing when the conjugacy class of a closed braid admits an exchange move or a reducing move.
We prove that the smallest non-trivial quotients of the commutator subgroups of the braid groups are the alternating groups, proving a conjecture of Chudnovsky-Kordek-Li-Partin. Furthermore, we show that any minimal quotient map is the standard projection, composed with an automorphism of the alternating group.
We give an explicit geometric argument that Artin's braid group $B_n$ is right-orderable. The construction is elementary, natural, and leads to a new, effectively computable, canonical form for braids which we call left-consistent canonical form. The left-consistent form of a braid which is positive (respectively negative) in our order has consistently positive (respectively negative) exponent in the smallest braid generator which occurs. It follows that our ordering is identical to that of Dehornoy, constructed by very different means, and we recover Dehornoy's main theorem that any braid can…
We characterize the (1, 1) knots in the three-sphere and lens spaces that admit non-trivial L-space surgeries. As a corollary, 1-bridge braids in these manifolds admit non- trivial L-space surgeries. We also recover a characterization of the Berge manifold amongst 1-bridge braid exteriors.
We study positive braid knots (the knots in the three-sphere realized as positive braid closures) through the lens of the L-space conjecture. This conjecture predicts that if $K$ is a non-trivial positive braid knot, then for all $r < 2g(K)-1$, the 3-manifold obtained via $r$-framed Dehn surgery along $K$ admits a taut foliation. Our main result provides some positive evidence towards this conjecture: we construct taut foliations in such manifolds whenever $r<g(K)+1$. As an application, we produce a novel braid positivity obstruction for cable knots by proving that the $(n,\pm 1)$-cable of a k…
Unknotting numbers for torus knots and links are well known. In this paper, we present a method for determining the position of unknotting number crossing changes in a toric braid B(p, q) such that the closure of the resultant braid is equivalent to the trivial knot or link. Also, we provide a simple proof for the important result K(p, q) \sim K(q, p) using the results obtained from this method.
We prove that fibred knots cannot be untied with $\bar{t}_{2k}$-moves, for all $k \geq 2$. More generally, we give an upper bound on the number of two strand twist operations that allow to untie a knot with non-trivial HOMFLY polynomial, in terms of the minimal crossing number, and the braid index. As a by-product, we prove that the braid index of a two-bridge knot cannot be lowered by applying $t_{2k}$-moves, for all but finitely many $k \in \mathbb{N}$.
Let $M$ be a closed, oriented, connected 3--manifold and $(B,π)$ an open book decomposition on $M$ with page $Σ$ and monodromy $φ$. It is easy to see that the first Betti number of $Σ$ is bounded below by the number of $S^2\times S^1$--factors in the prime factorization of $M$. Our main result is that equality is realized if and only if $φ$ is trivial and $M$ is a connected sum of $S^2\times S^1$'s. We also give some applications of our main result, such as a new proof of the result by Birman and Menasco that if the closure of a braid with $n$ strands is the unlink with $n$ components then the…