The number of colorings of a knot diagram by a quandle has been shown to be a knot invariant by CJKLS using quandle cohomology methods. In a previous paper by the second named author, the CJKLS invariant was refined and, in particular, it was shown that the number of colorings is an invariant directly without resorting to quandle cohomology. Here we investigate the effectiveness of this invariant on (classical) knots of up to and including ten crossings.
In this note, residual finiteness of quandles is defined and investigated. It is proved that free quandles and knot quandles of tame knots are residually finite and Hopfian. Residual finiteness of quandles arising from residually finite groups (conjugation, core and Alexander quandles) is established. Further, residual finiteness of automorphism groups of some residually finite quandles is also discussed.
We show that the structure of a fibered knot, as a fiber bundle, is reflected in its knot quandle. As an application, we discuss finiteness and equivalence of knot quandles of concrete fibered 2-knots.
Algorithms are described and Maple implementations are provided for finding all quandles of order $n$, as well as computing all homomorphisms between two finite quandles or from a finitely presented quandle (e.g., a knot quandle) to a finite quandle, computing the automorphism group of a finite quandle, etc. Several of these programs work for arbitrary binary operation tables and hence algebraic structures other than quandles. We also include a stand-alone C program which finds quandles of order $n$ and provide URLs for files containing the results for $n=6,$ 7 and 8.
Finite quandles with n elements can be represented as n-by-n matrices. We show how to use these matrices to distinguish all isomorphism classes of finite quandles for a given cardinality n, as well as how to compute the automorphism group of each finite quandle. As an application, we classify finite quandles with up to 5 elements and compute the automorphism group for each quandle.
It is a classical result in reduced homology of finite groups that the order of a group annihilates its homology. Similarly, we have proved that the torsion subgroup of rack and quandle homology of a finite quasigroup quandle is annihilated by its order. However, it does not hold for connected quandles in general. In this paper, we define an $m$-almost quasigroup ($m$-AQ) quandle which is a generalization of a quasigroup quandle and study annihilation of torsion in its rack and quandle homology groups.
To better understand the fundamental quandle of a knot or link, it can be useful to look at finite quotients of the quandle. One such quotient is the $n$-quandle (or, when $n=2$, the {\em involutory} quandle). Hoste and Shanahan \cite{HS2} gave a complete list of the links which have finite $n$-quandles; it remained to give explicit descriptions of these quandles. This has been done for several cases in \cite{CHMS} and \cite{HS1}; in the current work we continue this project and explicitly describe the Cayley graphs for the finite involutory quandles of two-bridge links with an axis.
We prove that an Alexander quandle of prime order is generated by any pair of distinct elements. Furthermore, we prove for such a quandle that any ordered pair of distinct elements can be sent to any other such pair by an automorphism of the quandle.
We describe an algorithm for determining whether a finite quandle is isomorphic to an Alexander quandle by finding all possible Alexander presentations of the quandle. We give an implementation of this algorithm in Maple.
We study the structure of finite quandles in terms of subquandles. Every finite quandle $Q$ decomposes in a natural way as a union of disjoint $Q$-complemented subquandles; this decomposition coincides with the usual orbit decomposition of $Q$. Conversely, the structure of a finite quandle with a given orbit decomposition is determined by its structure maps. We describe a procedure for finding all non-connected quandle structures on a disjoint union of subquandles.
We revisit finite racks and quandles using a perspective based on permutations which can aid in the understanding of the structure. As a consequence we recover old results and prove new ones. We also present and analyze several examples.
The fundamental quandle is a powerful invariant of knots, links and spatial graphs, but it is often difficult to determine whether two quandles are isomorphic. One approach is to look at quotients of the quandle, such as the $n$-quandle defined by Joyce \cite{JO}; in particular, Hoste and Shanahan \cite{HS2} classified the knots and links with finite $n$-quandles. Mellor and Smith \cite{MS} introduced the $N$-quandle of a link as a generalization of Joyce's $n$-quandle, and proposed a classification of the links with finite $N$-quandles. We generalize the $N$-quandle to spatial graphs, and inv…
We compute Cayley graphs and automorphism groups for all finite $n$-quandles of two-bridge and torus knots and links, as well as torus links with an axis.
The fundamental quandle is a powerful invariant of knots and links, but it is difficult to describe in detail. It is often useful to look at quotients of the quandle, especially finite quotients. One natural quotient introduced by Joyce is the $n$-quandle. Hoste and Shanahan gave a complete list of the knots and links which have finite $n$-quandles for some $n$. We introduce a generalization of $n$-quandles, denoted $N$-quandles (for a quandle with $k$ algebraic components, $N$ is a $k$-tuple of positive integers). We conjecture a classification of the links with finite $N$-quandles for some $…
We prove a conjecture of Przytycki which asserts that the $n$-quandle of a link $L$ in the 3-sphere is finite if and only if the fundamental group of the $n$-fold cyclic branched cover of the 3-sphere, branched over $L$, is finite.
Non-classical virtual knots may have non-isomorphic upper and lower quandles. We exploit this property to define the quandle difference invariant, which can detect non-classicality by comparing the numbers of homomorphisms into a finite quandle from a virtual knot's upper and lower quandles. The invariants for small-order finite quandles detect non-classicality in several interesting virtual knots. We compute the difference invariant with the six smallest connected quandles for all non-evenly intersticed Gauss codes with 3 and 4 crossings. For non-evenly intersticed Gauss codes with 4 crossing…
Residual finiteness is known to be an important property of groups appearing in combinatorial group theory and low dimensional topology. In a recent work [2] residual finiteness of quandles was introduced, and it was proved that free quandles and knot quandles are residually finite. In this paper, we extend these results and prove that free products of residually finite quandles are residually finite provided their associated groups are residually finite. As associated groups of link quandles are link groups, which are known to be residually finite, it follows that link quandles are residually…
A quandle coloring quiver is a quiver structure, introduced by Karina Cho and Sam Nelson, which is defined on the set of quandle colorings of an oriented knot or link by a finite quandle. We study quandle coloring quivers of (p, 2)-torus knots and links with respect to dihedral quandles.
Quandles can be regarded as generalizations of symmetric spaces. In the study of symmetric spaces, the notion of flatness plays an important role. In this paper, we define the notion of flat quandles, by referring to the theory of Riemannian symmetric spaces, and classify flat connected finite quandles.
We prove that if Q is a finite quasigroup quandle, then |Q| annihilates the torsion of its homology. It is a classical result in reduced homology of finite groups that the order of a group annihilates its homology. From the very beginning of the rack homology (between 1990 and 1995) the analogous result was suspected. The first general results in this direction were obtained independently about 2001 by R.A.Litherland and S.Nelson, and P.Etingof and M.Grana. In Litherland-Nelson paper it is proven that if (Q;*) is a finite homogeneous rack (this includes quasigroup racks) then the torsion of ho…
We define a two-variable polynomial invariant of finite quandles. In many cases this invariant completely determines the algebraic structure of the quandle up to isomorphism. We use this polynomial to define a family of link invariants which generalize the quandle counting invariant.
We study the quandle counting invariant for a certain family of finite quandles with trivial orbit subquandles. We show how these invariants determine the linking number of classical two-component links up to sign.
The homology and cohomology of quandles and racks are used in knot theory: given a finite quandle and a cocycle, we can construct a knot invariant. This is a quick introductory survey to the invariants of knots derived from quandles and racks.
In this paper we show that Montesinos links of the form L(1/2, 1/2, p/q;e), which we call (2,2,r)-Montesinos links, have finite involutory quandles. This generalizes an observation of Winker regarding the (2, 2, q)-pretzel links. We also describe some properties of these quandles.
Ishii and Oshiro introduced the notion of an $f$-twisted Alexander matrix, which is a quandle version of a twisted Alexander matrix and defined an invariant of finitely presented quandles. In this paper, we study $f$-twisted Alexander matrices of certain quandles with the Alexander pair obtained from a quandle 2-cocycle. We show that the 0-th elementary ideal of $f$-twisted Alexander matrix of the knot quandle of a surface knot with the Alexander pair obtained from a quandle 2-cocycle can be described with the Carter-Saito-Satoh's invariant. We also discuss a relationship between $f$-twisted A…
Two finite Alexander quandles with the same number of elements are isomorphic iff their Z[t,t^-1]-submodules Im(1-t) are isomorphic as modules. This yields specific conditions on when Alexander quandles of the form Z_n[t,t^-1]/(t-a) where gcd(n,a)=1 (called linear quandles) are isomorphic, as well as specific conditions on when two linear quandles are dual and which linear quandles are connected. We apply this result to obtain a procedure for classifying Alexander quandles of any finite order and as an application we list the numbers of distinct and connected Alexander quandles with up to fift…
We study the structure of symplectic quandles, quandles which are also R-modules equipped with an antisymmetric bilinear form. We show that every finite dimensional symplectic quandle over a finite field F or arbitrary field F of characteristic other than 2 is a disjoint union of a trivial quandle and a connected quandle. We use the module structure of a symplectic quandle over a finite ring to refine and strengthen the quandle counting invariant.
We present a set of 26 finite quandles that distinguish (up to reversal and mirror image) by number of colorings, all of the 2977 prime oriented knots with up to 12 crossings. We also show that 1058 of these knots can be distinguished from their mirror images by the number of colorings by quandles from a certain set of 23 finite quandles. We study the colorings of these 2977 knots by all of the 431 connected quandles of order at most 35 found by L. Vendramin. Among other things, we collect information about quandles that have the same number of colorings for all of the 2977 knots. For example,…
In this note we prove that for any finite quandle $X$ and any 2-cocycle $ϕ\in Z^2_{Q\pm}(X; \mathds{Z})$, the cocycle invariant $Φ^{\pm}_ϕ(K)$ is trivial for all knots $K$.
The goal of this paper is to characterization generalized Alexander quandles of finite groups in the language of the underlying groups. Firstly, we prove that if finite groups $G$ are simple, then the quandle isomorphic classes of generalized Alexander quandles of $G$ one-to-one correspond to the conjugacy classes of the automorphism groups of $G$. This correspondence can be also claimed for the case of symmetric groups. Secondly, we give a characterization of generalized Alexander quandles of finite groups $G$ under some assumptions in terms of $G$. As corollaries of this characterization, we…
Let $K, K'$ be ribbon knottings of $n$-spheres with $1$-handles in $S^{n+2}$, $n\geq 2$. We show that if the knot quandles of these knots are isomorphic, then the ribbon knottings are stably equivalent, in the sense of Nakanishi and Nakagawa, after taking a finite number of connected sums with trivially embedded copies of $S^{n-1}\times S^{1}$.
We determine the second, third, and fourth cohomology groups of Alexander $f$-quandles of the form $\mathbb{F}_q[T,S]/ (T-ω, S-β)$, where $\mathbb{F}_q$ denotes the finite field of order $q$, $ω\in \mathbb{F}_q\setminus \{0,1\}$, and $β\in \mathbb{F}_q$
In CJKLS quandle cohomology is used to produce invariants for particular embeddings of codimension two; 2-cocycles give to invariants for (classical) knots and 3-cocycles give rise to invariants for knotted surfaces. This is done by way of a notion of coloring of a diagram. Also, these invariants have the form of state-sums (or partition functions) used in Statistical Mechanics. By a careful analysis of these colorings of diagrams we are able to come up with new invariants which correspond to calculation of the partition function at finite temperatures.
We determine the third cohomology of Alexander quandles of the form F_q[T]/(T-omega), where F_q denotes the finite field of order q and omega is an element of F-q which is neither 0 nor 1. As a result, we obtain many concrete examples of non-trivial 3-cocycles.
We prove that for n>2 there exists a quandle of cyclic type of size n if and only if n is a power of a prime number. This establishes a conjecture of S. Kamada, H. Tamaru and K. Wada. As a corollary, every finite quandle of cyclic type is an Alexander quandle. We also prove that finite doubly transitive quandles are of cyclic type. This establishes a conjecture of H. Tamaru.
This paper demonstrates a topological meaning of quandle cocycle invariants of links with respect to finite connected quandles $X$, from a perspective of homotopy theory: Specifically, for any prime $\ell$ which does not divide the type of $X$, the $\ell$-torsion of this invariants is equal to a sum of the colouring polynomial and a $\Z$-equivariant part of the Dijkgraaf-Witten invariant of a cyclic branched covering space. Moreover, our homotopical approach involves application of computing some third homology groups and second homotopy groups of the classifying spaces of quandles, from resul…
We introduce a notion of natural orderings of elements of finite connected quandles of order $n$. When the elements of such a quandle $Q$ are already ordered naturally, any automophism on $Q$ is a natural ordering. Although there are many natural orderings, the operation tables for such orderings coincide when the permutation $*q$ is a cycle of length $n-1$. This leads to the classification of automorphisms on such a quandle. Moreover, it is also shown that every row and column of the operation table of such a quandle contains all the elements of $Q$, which is due to K. Oshiro. We also conside…
In this paper, we study quandles of cyclic type, which form a particular subclass of finite quandles. The main result of this paper describes the set of isomorphism classes of quandles of cyclic type in terms of certain cyclic permutations. By using our description, we give a direct classification of quandles of cyclic type with cardinality up to $12$.
We define an invariant of tangles and framed tangles given a finite crossed module and a pair of functions, called a Reidemeister pair, satisfying natural properties. We give several examples of Reidemeister pairs derived from racks, quandles, rack and quandle cocycles, and central extensions of groups. We prove that our construction includes all rack and quandle cohomology (framed) link invariants, as well as the Eisermann invariant of knots. We construct a class of Reidemeister pairs which constitute a lifting of the Eisermann invariant, and show through an example that this class is strictl…
The knot coloring polynomial defined by Eisermann for a finite pointed group is generalized to an infinite pointed group as the longitudinal mapping invariant of a knot. In turn this can be thought of as a generalization of the quandle 2-cocycle invariant for finite quandles. If the group is a topological group then this invariant can be thought of a topological generalization of the 2-cocycle invariant. The longitudinal mapping invariant is based on a meridian-longitude pair in the knot group. We also give an interpretation of the invariant in terms of quandle colorings of a 1-tangle for gene…
Quandle coloring quivers are directed graph-valued invariants of oriented knots and links, defined using a choice of finite quandle $X$ and set $S\subset\mathrm{Hom}(X,X)$ of endomorphisms. From a quandle coloring quiver, a polynomial knot invariant known as the \textit{in-degree quiver polynomial} is defined. We consider quandle coloring quiver invariants for oriented surface-links, represented by marked graph diagrams. We provide example computations for all oriented surface-links with ch-index up to 10 for choices of quandles and endomorphisms.
We define a family of generalizations of the two-variable quandle polynomial. These polynomial invariants generalize in a natural way to eight-variable polynomial invariants of finite biquandles. We use these polynomials to define a family of link invariants which further generalize the quandle counting invariant.
The state-sum invariants for knots and knotted surfaces defined from quandle cocycles are described using the Kronecker product between cycles represented by colored knot diagrams and a cocycle of a finite quandle used to color the diagram. Such an interpretation is applied to evaluating the invariants. Algebraic interpretations of quandle cocycles as deformations of extensions are also given. The proofs rely on colored knot diagrams.
We define ambient isotopy invariants of oriented knots and links using the counting invariants of framed links defined by finite racks. These invariants reduce to the usual quandle counting invariant when the rack in question is a quandle. We are able to further enhance these counting invariants with 2-cocycles from the coloring rack's second rack cohomology satisfying a new degeneracy condition which reduces to the usual case for quandles.
We describe a way of representing finite biquandles with n elements as 2n x 2n block matrices. Any finite biquandle defines an invariant of virtual knots through counting homomorphisms. The counting invariants of non-quandle biquandles can reveal information not present in the knot quandle, such as the non-triviality of the virtual trefoil and various Kishino knots. We also exhibit a virtual knot which is distinguished from its obverse and its reverse by a finite biquandle counting invariant. We classify biquandles of order 2, 3 and 4 and provide a URL for our Maple programs for computing with…
