In this chapter (Chapter V) we present several results which demonstrate a close connection and useful exchange of ideas between graph theory and knot theory. These disciplines were shown to be related from the time of Tait (if not Listing) but the great flow of ideas started only after Jones discoveries. The first deep relation in this new trend was demonstrated by Morwen Thistlethwaite and we describe several results by him in this Chapter. We also presentresults from two (unpublished) preprints [P-P-0,P-18].In particular, in Section 2, we sketch two generalizations of the Tutte polynomial of graphs or, more precisely, the deletion-contraction method which Tutte polynomial utilize. The first generalization considers, instead of graphs, general objects called setoids or group systems. The second one deals with completion of the expansion of a graph with respect to subgraphs. We are motivated here by finite type invariants of links developed by Vassiliev and Gusarov along the line presented in [P-9] (compare Chapter IX). The dichromatic Hopf algebra, described in Section 2, have its origin in Vassiliev-Gusarov theory mixed with work of G. Carlo-Rota and W. Schmitt. In Section 3 we describe Tait conjecture on alternating link diagrams and apply developed methods to study adequate diagrams. In Section 4 we apply 2-variable Kauffman polynomial to alternating links and prove, in particular, the second Tait conjecture. In Section 5 we analyze the Kauffman polynomial of adequate diagrams. In Section 6 we show how coefficients of Homflypt polynomial can be used to obtain new information on classical knot invariants (e.g. Morton-Franks-Williams inequality). In the last section of Chapter V we discuss almost positive links and our method uses K. Taniyama idea of ordering of knots.
Tait's flyping conjecture, stating that two reduced, alternating, prime link diagrams can be connected by a finite sequence of flypes, is extended to reduced, alternating, prime diagrams of 4-regular graphs in S^3. The proof of this version of the flyping conjecture is based on the fact that the equivalence classes with respect to ambient isotopy and rigid vertex isotopy of graph embeddings are identical on the class of diagrams considered.
The Tait conjecture states that reduced alternating diagrams of links in S^3 have the minimal number of crossings. It has been proved in 1987 by M. Thistlethwaite, L.H. Kauffman and K. Murasugi studying the Jones polynomial. In this paper we prove an analogous result for alternating links in S^1xS^2 giving a complete answer to this problem. In S^1xS^2 we find a dichotomy: the appropriate version of the statement is true for \Z_2-homologically trivial links, and our proof also uses the Jones polynomial. On the other hand, the statement is false for \Z_2-homologically non trivial links, for whic…
In this paper, we characterize the sigma-adequacy of a link diagram in two ways: in terms of a certain edge subset of its Tait graph and in terms of a certain product of Tutte polynomials. Furthermore, we show that the symmetrized Tutte polynomial of the Tait graph of a link diagram can be written as a sum of these products of Tutte polynomials, where the sum is over the sigma-adequate states of the given link diagram. Using this state sum, we show that the number of sigma-adequate states of a link diagram is bounded above by the number of spanning trees in its associated Tait graph. By combin…
There is a well-known way to describe a link diagram as a (signed) plane graph, called its Tait graph. This concept was recently extended, providing a way to associate a set of embedded graphs (or ribbon graphs) to a link diagram. While every plane graph arises as a Tait graph of a unique link diagram, not every embedded graph represents a link diagram. Furthermore, although a Tait graph describes a unique link diagram, the same embedded graph can represent many different link diagrams. One is then led to ask which embedded graphs represent link diagrams, and how link diagrams presented by the…
The Tait conjecture states that alternating reduced diagrams of links in S^3 have the minimal number of crossings. It has been proved in 1987 by M. Thistlethwaite, L. Kauffman and K. Murasugi studying the Jones polynomial. The author proved an analogous result for alternating links in S^1xS^2 giving a complete answer to this problem. In this paper we extend the result to alternating links in the connected sum #_g(S^1xS^2) of g copies of S^1xS^2. In S^1xS^2 and #_2(S^1xS^2) the appropriate version of the statement is true for \Z_2-homologically trivial links, and the proof also uses the Jones p…
We associate a moduli space M(G) to a planar trivalent graph G. We proved several decomposition properties of M(G), which implies that the Euler characteristic of M(G) equals to the number of Tait colorings of G when G is bipartite. Then we interpret M(G) as a representation space of the fundamental group of G to SU(3).
We obtain a simple and complete characterisation of which matchings on the Tait graph of a knot diagram induce a discrete Morse function (dMf) on $S^2$, extending a construction due to Cohen. We show these dMfs are in bijection with certain rooted spanning forests in the Tait graph. We use this to count the number of such dMfs with a closed formula involving the graph Laplacian. We then simultaneously generalise Kauffman's Clock Theorem and Kenyon-Propp-Wilson's correspondence in two different directions; we first prove that the image of the correspondence induces a bijection on perfect dMfs, …
Recently, Dasbach, Futer, Kalfagianni, Lin, and Stoltzfus extended the notion of a Tait graph by associating a set of ribbon graphs (or equivalently, embedded graphs) to a link diagram. Here we focus on Seifert graphs, which are the ribbon graphs of a knot or link diagram that arise from Seifert states. We provide a characterization of Seifert graphs in terms of Eulerian subgraphs. This characterization can be viewed as a refinement of the fact that Seifert graphs are bipartite. We go on to examine the family of ribbon graphs that arises by forming the parallels of a link diagram and determine…
We prove a Kauffman-Murasugi-Thistlethwaite theorem for alternating links in thickened surfaces. It states that any reduced alternating diagram of a link in a thickened surface has minimal crossing number, and any two reduced alternating diagrams of the same link have the same writhe. This result is proved more generally for link diagrams that are adequate, and the proof involves a two-variable generalization of the Jones polynomial for surface links defined by Krushkal. The main result is used to establish the first and second Tait conjectures for links in thickened surfaces and for virtual l…
We give an algorithmic computation for the height of Kauffman's clock lattice obtained from a knot diagram with two adjacent regions starred and without crossing information specified. We show that this lattice is more familiarly the graph of perfect matchings of a bipartite graph obtained from the knot diagram by overlaying the two dual Tait graphs of the knot diagram. This setting also makes evident applications to Chebyshev or harmonic knots, whose related bipartite graph is the popular grid graph, and to discrete Morse functions. Furthermore we prove structural properties of the bipartite …
We study the structure of the stable coefficients of the Jones polynomial of an alternating link. We start by identifying the first four stable coefficients with polynomial invariants of a (reduced) Tait graph of the link projection. This leads us to introduce a free polynomial algebra of invariants of graphs whose elements give invariants of alternating links which strictly refine the first four stable coefficients. We conjecture that all stable coefficients are elements of this algebra, and give experimental evidence for the fifth and sixth stable coefficient. We illustrate our results in ta…
Recent advances in Quantum Topology assign $q$-series to knots in at least three different ways. The $q$-series are given by generalized Nahm sums (i.e., special $q$-hypergeometric sums) and have unknown modular and asymptotic properties. We give an efficient method to compute those $q$-series that come from planar graphs (i.e., reduced Tait graphs of alternating links) and compute several terms of those series for all graphs with at most 8 edges drawing several conclusions. In addition, we give a graph-theory proof of a theorem of Dasbach-Lin which identifies the coefficient of $q^k$ in those…
This paper presents an algorithm to construct a weighted adjacency matrix of a plane bipartite graph obtained from a pretzel knot diagram. The determinant of this matrix after evaluation is shown to be the Jones polynomial of the pretzel knot by way of perfect matchings (or dimers) of this graph. The weights are Tutte's activity letters that arise because the Jones polynomial is a specialization of the signed version of the Tutte polynomial. The relationship is formalized between the familiar spanning tree setting for the Tait graph and the perfect matchings of the plane bipartite graph above.…
The present paper is an introduction to a combinatorial theory arising as a natural generalisation of classical and virtual knot theory. There is a way to encode links by a class of `realisable' graphs. When passing to generic graphs with the same equivalence relations we get `graph-links'. On one hand graph-links generalise the notion of virtual link, on the other hand they do not feel link mutations. We define the Jones polynomial for graph-links and prove its invariance. We also prove some a generalisation of the Kauffman-Murasugi-Thistlethwaite theorem on `minmal diagrams' for graph-links
The present paper is a review of the current state of Graph-Link Theory (graph-links are also closely related to homotopy classes of looped interlacement graphs), dealing with a generalisation of knots obtained by translating the Reidemeister moves for links into the language of intersection graphs of chord diagrams. In this paper we show how some methods of classical and virtual knot theory can be translated into the language of abstract graphs, and some theorems can be reproved and generalised to this graphical setting. We construct various invariants, prove certain minimality theorems and c…
Every link diagram can be represented as a signed ribbon graph. However, different link diagrams can be represented by the same ribbon graphs. We determine how checkerboard colourable diagrams of links in real projective space, and virtual link diagrams, that are represented by the same ribbon graphs are related to each other. We also find moves that relate the diagrams of links in real projective space that give rise to (all-A) ribbon graphs with exactly one vertex.
We find the minimal number of links in an embedding of any complete $k$-partite graph on 7 vertices (including $K_7$, which has at least 21 links). We give either exact values or upper and lower bounds for the minimal number of links for all complete $k$-partite graphs on 8 vertices. We also look at larger complete bipartite graphs, and state a conjecture relating minimal linking embeddings with minimal book embeddings.
We introduce a new equivalence relation on decorated ribbon graphs, and show that its equivalence classes directly correspond to virtual links. We demonstrate how this correspondence can be used to convert any invariant of virtual links into an invariant of ribbon graphs, and vice versa.
A short, elementary proof is given of the result: The number of components of a link arising from a medial graph M(G) by resolving vertices is equal to the nullity of the mod-2 Laplacian matrix of the graph G.
We investigate the minimal number of links and knots in complete partite graphs. We provide exact values or bounds on the minimal number of links for all complete partite graphs with all but 4 vertices in one partition, or with 9 vertices in total. In particular, we find that the minimal number of links for $K_{4,4,1}$ is 74. We also provide exact values or bounds on the minimal number of knots for all complete partite graphs with 8 vertices.
In earlier work we introduced the graph bracket polynomial of graphs with marked vertices, motivated by the fact that the Kauffman bracket of a link diagram D is determined by a looped, marked version of the interlacement graph associated to a directed Euler system of the universe graph of D. Here we extend the graph bracket to graphs whose vertices may carry different kinds of marks, and we show how multiply marked graphs encode interlacement with respect to arbitrary (undirected) Euler systems. The extended machinery brings together the earlier version and the graph-links of D. P. Ilyutko an…
We introduce and study so-called self-indexed graphs. These are (oriented) finite graphs endowed with a map from the set of edges to the set of vertices. Such graphs naturally arise from classical knot and link diagrams. In fact, the graphs resulting from link diagrams have an additional structure, an integral flow. We call a self-indexed graph with integral flow a comte. The analogy with links allows us to define transformations of comtes generalizing the Reidemeister moves on link diagrams. We show that many invariants of links can be generalized to comtes, most notably the linking number, t…
In this paper we review the definitions of homogeneous and alternative links. We also give two new characterizations of an alternative link diagram, one within the context of the enhanced checkerboard graph and another from the labeled Seifert graph.
We study intrinsically linked graphs where we require that every embedding of the graph contains not just a non-split link, but a link that satisfies some additional property. Examples of properties we address in this paper are: a two component link with lk(A,L) = k2^r, k not 0, a non-split n-component link where all linking numbers are even, or an n-component link with components L, A_i where lk(L,A_i) = 3k, k not 0. Links with other properties are considered as well. For a given property, we prove that every embedding of a certain complete graph contains a link with that property. The size o…
It is well known that surface-links in 4-space can be presented by diagrams on the plane of 4-valent spatial graphs with makers on the vertices, called marked graph diagrams. In this paper we extend the method of presenting surface-links by marked graph diagrams to presenting immersed surface-links. We also give some moves on marked graph diagrams that preserve the ambient isotopy classes of their presenting immersed surface-links.
We give a closed formula for the multivariable Conway potential function of any graph link in a homology sphere. As corollaries, we answer three questions by Walter Neumann about graph links.
We define an equivalence relation on graphs with signed edges, such that the associated adjacency matrices of two equivalent graphs are congruent over $\mathbb{Z}$. We show that signed graphs whose eigenvalues are larger than $-2$ are equivalent to one of the simply laced Dynkin diagrams: $A_{n}$, $D_{n}$, $E_{6}$, $E_{7}$ and $E_{8}$. Checkerboard graph links are a class of fibred strongly quasipositive links which include positive braid links. We use the previous result to prove that a checkerboard graph link with maximal signature is isotopic to one of the links realized by the simply laced…
For a signed cyclic graph G, we can construct a unique virtual link L by taking the medial construction and convert 4-valent vertices of the medial graph to crossings according to the signs. If a virtual link can occur in this way then we say that the virtual link is graphical. In the article we shall prove that a virtual link L is graphical if and only if it is checkerboard colorable. On the other hand, we introduce a polynomial F[G] for signed cyclic graphs, which is defined via a deletion-marking recursion. We shall establish the relationship between F[G] of a signed cyclic graph G and the …
A marked graph diagram is a link diagram possibly with marked $4$-valent vertices. S. J. Lomonaco, Jr. and K. Yoshikawa introduced a method of representing surface-links by marked graph diagrams. Specially, K. Yoshikawa gave local moves on marked graph diagrams, nowadays called Yoshikawa moves. It is now known that two marked graph diagrams representing equivalent surface-links are related by a finite sequence of these Yoshikawa moves. In this paper, we provide some generating sets of Yoshikawa moves on marked graph diagrams representing unoriented surface-links, and also oriented surface-link…
By using the cohomology theory of quandles, quandle cocycle invariants and shadow quandle cocycle invariants are defined for oriented links and surface-links via broken surface diagrams. By using symmetric quandles, symmetric quandle cocycle invariants are also defined for unoriented links and surface-links via broken surface diagrams. A marked graph diagram is a link diagram possibly with $4$-valent vertices equipped with markers. S. J. Lomonaco, Jr. and K. Yoshikawa introduced a method of describing surface-links by using marked graph diagrams. In this paper, we give interpretations of these…
We construct a graph G such that any embedding of G into R^{3} contains a nonsplit link of two components, where at least one of the components is a nontrivial knot. Further, for any m < n we produce a graph H so that every embedding of H contains a nonsplit n component link, where at least m of the components are nontrivial knots. We then turn our attention to complete graphs and show that for any given n, every embedding of a large enough complete graph contains a two component link whose linking number is a nonzero multiple of n.
A. S. Lipson constructed two state models yielding the same classical link invariant obtained from the Kauffman polynomial $F(a,z)$. In this paper, we apply Lipson's state models to marked graph diagrams of surface-links, and observe when they induce surface-link invariants.
Conway and Gordon proved that for every spatial complete graph on six vertices, the sum of the linking numbers over all of the constituent two-component links is odd, and Kazakov and Korablev proved that for every spatial complete graph with arbitrary number of vertices greater than six, the sum of the linking numbers over all of the constituent two-component Hamiltonian links is even. In this paper, we show that for every spatial complete graph whose number of vertices is greater than six, the sum of the square of the linking numbers over all of the two-component Hamiltonian links is determin…
As an extension of the class of algebraic links, A'Campo, Gibson, and Ishikawa constructed links associated to immersed arcs and trees in a two-dimensional disk. By extending their arguments, we construct links associated to immersed graphs in a disk, and show that such links are quasipositive.
We compute the average Tristram---Levine signature of any graph link with positive weights in a three sphere, generalizing the results of Kirby and Melvin. The main tools are the Neumann's algorithm for computing the equivariant signatures of graph links and the Reciprocity Law for Dedekind sums.
We say that a set of pairs of disjoint cycles $Λ(G)$ of a graph $G$ is linked if for any spatial embedding $f$ of $G$ there exists an element $λ$ of $Λ(G)$ such that the $2$-component link $f(λ)$ is nonsplittable, and also say minimally linked if none of its proper subsets are linked. In this paper, (1) we show that the set of all pairs of disjoint cycles of $G$ is minimally linked if and only if $G$ is essentially same as a graph in the Petersen family, and (2) for any two integers $p,q\ge 3$, we exhibit a minimally linked set of Hamiltonian $(p,q)$-pairs of cycles of the complete graph $K_{p…
In the present paper, we construct the generalized Kuperberg bracket for two-component links with one component fibred. We consider a new geometrical complexity for such links and establish minimality of diagrams in a strong sense.
We extend the notion of intersection graphs for knots in the theory of finite type invariants to string links. We use our definition to develop weight systems for string links via the adjacency matrix of the intersection graph, and show that these weight systems are related to the weight systems induced by the Conway and Homfly polynomials.
In this paper, we introduce two functions such that the subtraction corresponds to the Milnor's triple linking number; the addition obtains a new integer-valued link homotopy invariant of $3$-component links. We also have found a series of integer-valued invariants derived from four terms whose sum equals the Milnor's triple linking number. We apply this structure to give invariants of $3$-bouquet graphs.
We define a decomposition of link projections whose pieces we call atoroidal graphs. We describe a surgery operation on these graphs and show that all atoroidal graphs can be generated by performing surgery repeatedly on a family of well known link projections. This gives a method of enumerating atoroidal graphs and hence link projections by recomposing the pieces of the decomposition.
We define link and graph invariants from entropic magmas modeling them on the Kauffman bracket and Tutte polynomial. We define the homology of entropic magmas. We also consider groups that can be assigned to the families of compatible entropic magmas.
We say that a link $L_1$ is an s-major of a link $L_2$ if any diagram of $L_1$ can be transformed into a diagram of $L_2$ by changing some crossings and smoothing some crossings. This relation is a partial ordering on the set of all prime alternating links. We determine this partial order for all prime alternating knots and links with the crossing number less than or equal to six. The proofs are given by graph-theoretic methods.
In the present paper we determine the Thurston-Bennequin invariant of graph divide links, which include all closed positive braids, all divide links and certain negative twist knots. As a corollary of this and a result of P. Lisca and A.I. Stipsicz, we prove that the 3-manifold obtained from the 3-sphere by Dehn surgery along a non-trivial graph divide knot K with coefficient r carries positive, tight contact structures for every r except the Thurston-Bennequin invariant of K.
