In this article we shall give an account of certain developments in knot theory which followed upon the discovery of the Jones polynomial in 1984. The focus of our account will be recent glimmerings of understanding of the topological meaning of the new invariants. A second theme will be the central role that braid theory has played in the subject. A third will be the unifying principles provided by representations of simple Lie algebras and their universal enveloping algebras. These choices in emphasis are our own. They represent, at best, particular aspects of the far-reaching ramifications that followed the discovery of the Jones polynomial.
We construct cohomology classes in the space of knots by considering a bundle over this space and "integrating along the fiber" classes coming from the cohomology of configuration spaces using a Pontrjagin-Thom construction. The bundle we consider is essentially the one considered by Bott and Taubes, who integrated differential forms along the fiber to get knot invariants. By doing this "integration" homotopy-theoretically, we are able to produce integral cohomology classes. We then show how this integration is compatible with the homology operations on the space of long knots, as studied by B…
Racks do not give us invariants of surface-knots in general. For example, if a surface-knot diagram has branch points (and a rack which we use satisfies some mild condition), then it admits no rack colorings. In this paper, we investigate rack colorings for surface-knot diagrams without branch points and prove that rack colorings are invariants of $S^2$-knots. We also prove that rack colorings for $S^2$-knots can be interpreted in terms of quandles, and discuss a relationship with regular-equivalences of surface-knot diagrams.
This paper provides the complete table of prime knot projections with their mirror images, without redundancy, up to eight double points systematically thorough a finite procedure by flypes. In this paper, we show how to tabulate the knot projections up to eight double points by listing tangles with at most four double points by an approach with respect to rational tangles of J. H. Conway. In other words, for a given prime knot projection of an alternating knot, we show how to enumerate possible projections of the alternating knot. Also to tabulate knot projections up to ambient isotopy, we in…
In this paper we describe progress made toward the construction of the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev theory of knot invariants from the geometric point of view. This is done in the perspective of a joint result of the author with A. Uribe which relates the quantum group and the Weyl quantizations of the moduli space of flat SU(2)-connections on the tours. Two results are emphasized: the reconstruction from Weyl quantization of the restriction to the torus of the modular functor, and a description of a basis of the space of quantum observables on the torus in terms of colored curves, which answers …
It is known that any surface knot can be transformed to an unknotted surface knot or a surface knot which has a diagram with no triple points by a finite number of 1-handle additions. The minimum number of such 1-handles is called the unknotting number or the triple point cancelling number, respectively. In this paper, we give upper bounds and lower bounds of unknotting numbers and triple point cancelling numbers of torus-covering knots, which are surface knots in the form of coverings over the standard torus $T$. Upper bounds are given by using $m$-charts on $T$ presenting torus-covering knot…
Using an argument of Baldwin--Hu--Sivek, we prove that if $K$ is a hyperbolic fibered knot with fiber $F$ in a closed, oriented $3$--manifold $Y$, and $\widehat{HFK}(Y,K,[F], g(F)-1)$ has rank $1$, then the monodromy of $K$ is freely isotopic to a pseudo-Anosov map with no fixed points. In particular, this shows that the monodromy of a hyperbolic L-space knot is freely isotopic to a map with no fixed points.
We consider a knot homotopy as a cylinder in 4-space. An ordinary triple point $p$ of the cylinder is called {\em coherent} if all three branches intersect at $p$ pairwise with the same index. A {\em triple unknotting} of a classical knot $K$ is a homotopy which connects $K$ with the trivial knot and which has as singularities only coherent triple points. We give a new formula for the first Vassiliev invariant $v_2(K)$ by using triple unknottings. As a corollary we obtain a very simple proof of the fact that passing a coherent triple point always changes the knot type. As another corollary we …
We will discuss a method for visual presentation of knotted surfaces in the four space, by examining a number and a position of its Morse's critical points. Using this method, we will investigate surface-knot with one critical point of index 1. Then we show infinitely many mutually distinct surface-knots that has an embedding with two critical points of index 1. Next we define a long flat for a banded link for any surface-knot and show diagrammatically a long flat form of $n$-twist-spun $(2,t)$-torus knots.
A regular $n$-gon inscribing a knot is a sequence of $n$ points on a knot, such that the distances between adjacent points are all the same. It is shown that any smooth knot is inscribed by a regular $n$-gon for any $n$.
We study surface knots in 4-space by using generic planar projections. These projections have fold points and cusps as their singularities and the image of the singular point set divides the plane into several regions. The width (or the total width) of a surface knot is a numerical invariant related to the number of points in the inverse image of a point in each of the regions. We determine the widths of certain surface knots and characterize those surface knots with small total widths. Relation to the surface braid index is also studied.
We develop an invariant of knots that depends on a complex parameter t, describing a left ideal in the noncommutative torus. When the parameter is set equal to -1 we recover the A-polynomial of the knot. We relate the invariant to the colored Jones polynomials of the knot.
A quadrisecant of a knot is a straight line intersecting the knot at four points. If a knot has finitely many quadrisecants, one can replace each subarc between two adjacent secant points by the line segment between them to get the quadrisecant approximation of the original knot. It was conjectured that the quadrisecant approximation is always a knot with the same knot type as the original knot. We show that every knot type contains two knots, the quadrisecant approximation of one knot has self intersections while the quadrisecant approximation of the other knot is a knot with different knot t…
We succeed to generalize spun knots of classical 1-knots to the virtual 1-knot case by using the `spinning construction'. That, is, we prove the following: Let $Q$ be a spun knot of a virtual 1-knot $K$ by our method. The embedding type $Q$ in $S^4$ depends only on $K$. Furthermore we prove the following: The submanifolds, $Q$ and the embedded torus made from $K,$ defined by Satoh's method, in $S^4$ are isotopic. We succeed to generalize the above construction to the virtual 2-knot case. Note that Satoh's method says nothing about the virtual 2-knot case. Rourke's interpretation of Satoh's met…
It is known that every nontrivial knot has at least two quadrisecants. Given a knot, we mark each intersection point of each of its quadrisecants. Replacing each subarc between two nearby marked points with a straight line segment joining them, we obtain a polygonal closed curve which we will call the quadrisecant approximation of the given knot. We show that for any hexagonal trefoil knot, there are only three quadrisecants, and the resulting quadrisecant approximation has the same knot type.
We study the twisted Alexander polynomial from the viewpoint of the SL(2,C)-character variety of nonabelian representations of a knot group. It is known that if a knot is fibered, then the twisted Alexander polynomials associated with nonabelian SL(2,C)-representations are all monic. In this paper, we show that the converse holds for 2-bridge knots. Furthermore we show that for a 2-bridge knot there exists a curve component in the SL(2,C)-character variety such that if the knot is not fibered then there are only finitely many characters in the component for which the associated twisted Alexand…
Given a knot K in an integral homology sphere with exterior N_K, there is a natural action of the cyclic group Z/n on the space of SL(n,C) representations of the knot group π_1(N_K), and this induces an action on the SL(n,C) character variety. We identify the fixed points of this action in terms of characters of metabelian representations, and we apply this to show that the twisted Alexander polynomial associated to an irreducible metabelian SL(n,C) representation is actually a polynomial in t^n.
Weights of essential surfaces in 2-bridge knot complements
University of Wisconsin, Madison（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校）；Department of Mathematics and Statistics, The College of New Jersey（新泽西学院数学与统计系）；Ignite Fueling Innovation, Inc（Ignite燃料创新公司）
We introduce the warping crossing polynomial of an oriented knot diagram by using the warping degrees of crossing points of the diagram. Given a closed transversely intersected plane curve, we consider oriented knot diagrams obtained from the plane curve as states to take the sum of the warping crossing polynomials for all the states for the plane curve. As an application, we show that every closed transversely intersected plane curve with even crossing points has two independent canonical orientations and every based closed transversely intersected plane curve with odd crossing points has two…
Let n be aninteger>4. There is a smoothly knotted n-dimensional sphere in (n+2)-space such that the singular point set of its projection in (n+1)-space consists of double points and that the components of the singular point set are two. (The sphere is knotted in the sense that it does not bound any embedded (n+1)-ball in (n+2)-space.) Furthermore, the projection is not the projection of any unknotted sphere in the (n+2)-space. There are two inequivalent embeddings of an n-manifold in the (n+2)-space such that the projection of one of these in (n+1)-space has no double points and the projection…
This is an expository article of our work on analogies between knot theory and algebraic number theory. We shall discuss foundational analogies between knots and primes, 3-manifolds and number rings mainly from the group-theoretic point of view.
A generic immersion of a circle into a $2$-sphere is often studied as a projection of a knot; it is called a knot projection. A chord diagram is a configuration of paired points on a circle; traditionally, the two points of each pair are connected by a chord. A triple chord is a chord diagram consisting of three chords, each of which intersects the other chords. Every knot projection obtains a chord diagram in which every pair of points corresponds to the inverse image of a double point. In this paper, we show that for any knot projection $P$, if its chord diagram contains no triple chord, the…
The A-polynomial is a knot invariant related to the space of $SL_2(\mathbb{C})$ representations of the knot group. In this paper our interests lies in the logarithmic Gauss map of the A-polynomial. We develop a homological point of view on this slope by extending the constructions of Degtyarev, the second author and Lecuona to the setting of non-abelian representations. It defines a rational function on the character variety, which unifies various known invariants such as the change of curves in the Reidemeister function, the modulus of boundary-parabolic representations, the boundary slope of…
We consider the Reidemeister torsion associated with SL(2, C)-representations of a knot group. A bifurcation point in the SL(2, C)-character variety of a knot group is a character which is given by both an abelian SL(2, C)-representation and a non-abelian one. We show that there exist limits of the non-acyclic Reidemeister torsion at bifurcation points and the limits are expressed by using the derivation of the Alexander polynomial of the knot in this paper.
The distortion of a curve is the supremum, taken over distinct pairs of points of the curve, of the ratio of arclength to spatial distance between the points. Gromov asked in 1981 whether a curve in every knot type can be constructed with distortion less than a universal constant C. Answering Gromov's question seems to require the construction of lower bounds on the distortion of knots in terms of some topological invariant. We attempt to make such bounds easier to construct by showing that pairs of points with high distortion are very common on curves of minimum length in the set of curves in…
In view of the self-linking invariant, the number $|K|$ of framed knots in $S^3$ with given underlying knot $K$ is infinite. In fact, the second author previously defined affine self-linking invariants and used them to show that $|K|$ is infinite for every knot in an orientable manifold unless the manifold contains a connected sum factor of $S^1\times S^2$; the knot $K$ need not be zero-homologous and the manifold is not required to be compact. We show that when $M$ is orientable, the number $|K|$ is infinite unless $K$ intersects a non-separating sphere at exactly one point, in which case $|K…
A point in the $(N,q)$-torus knot in $\mathbb{R}^3$ goes $q$ times along a vertical circle while this circle rotates $N$ times around the vertical axis. In the Lissajous-toric knot $K(N,q,p)$, the point goes along a vertical Lissajous curve (parametrized by $t\mapsto(\sin(qt+ϕ),\cos(pt+ψ)))$ while this curve rotates $N$ times around the vertical axis. Such a knot has a natural braid representation $B_{N,q,p}$ which we investigate here. If $gcd(q,p)=1$, $K(N,q,p)$ is ribbon; if $gcd(q,p)=d>1$, $B_{N,q,p}$ is the $d$-th power of a braid which closes in a ribbon knot. We give an upper bound for t…
It is known that there is no 2-knot with triple point number two. The present work shows that there is no surface-knot of genus one with triple point number two. In order to prove the result, we use Roseman moves and the algebraic intersection number of simple closed curves in the double decker set.
Given a knot $K$ parametrized by $r: [0,2π] \to \mathbb{R}^3$, we can define the electric potential on its complement by $Φ(x) = \int_0^{2π} \frac{|r'(t)|}{|x - r(t)|}dt$. Physicists and knot theorists want to understand the critical points of the potential and their behavior. The tunneling number $t(K)$ of a knot is the smallest number of arcs one needs to add to a knot so the complement is a handlebody. We show the number of critical points of the potential is at least $2t(K) + 2$. The result is proven using Morse theory and stable manifold theory.
In this paper, we construct invariants of braids, knots and links by studying dynamics of points in $\R^{2}$ and applying the Ptolemy relation $ac+bd=xy$.
We develop a construction suggested by Scharlemann and Thompson to obtain an infinite family of pairs of knots $K_α$ and $K'_α$ so that $w(K_α # K'_α)=max{w(K_α), w(K'_α)}$. This is the first known example of a pair of knots such that $w(K#K')<w(K)+w(K')-2$ and it establishes that the lower bound $w(K#K')\geq max{w(K),w(K')}$ obtained by Scharlemann and Schultens is best possible. Furthermore, the knots $K_α$ provide an example of knots where the number of critical points for the knot in thin position is greater than the number of critical points for the knot in bridge position.
A Chebyshev curve C(a,b,c,ϕ) has a parametrization of the form x(t)=Ta(t); y(t)=T_b(t) ; z(t)= Tc(t + ϕ), where a,b,c are integers, Tn(t) is the Chebyshev polynomial of degree n and ϕ\in \RR. When C(a,b,c,ϕ) has no double points, it defines a polynomial knot. We determine all possible knots when a, b and c are given.
I give my view of the early history of the discovery of hyperbolic structures on knot complements from my early work on representations of knot groups into matrix groups to my meeting with William Thurston in 1976. (This article was written by Robert Riley about ten years before his death in 2000 and never submitted for publication. An explanation of why it is being published now and some information about Riley and this article is given in the article by Brin, Jones and Singerman which accompanies this article in this issue of the [journal | arxiv].)
If $K$ is a fibered knot in a closed, oriented $3$--manifold $Y$ with fiber $F$, and $\widehat{HFK}(Y,K,[F], g(F)-1;\mathbb Z/2\mathbb Z)$ has rank $r$, then the monodromy of $K$ is freely isotopic to a diffeomorphism with at most $r-1$ fixed points. This generalizes earlier work of Baldwin--Hu--Sivek and Ni. We also clarify a misleading formula in Cotton-Clay's computation of the symplectic Floer homology of mapping classes of surfaces.
We prove the analyticity of smooth critical points for O'Hara's knot energies $\mathcal{E}^{α,p}$, with $p=1$ and $2<α< 3$, subject to a fixed length constraint. This implies, together with the main result in \cite{BR13}, that bounded energy critical points of $\mathcal{E}^{α,1}$ subject to a fixed length constraint are not only $C^\infty$ but also analytic. Our approach is based on Cauchy's method of majorants and a decomposition of the gradient that was adapted from the Möbius energy case $\mathcal{E}^{2,1}$ in \cite{BV19}.
In this article we study the regularity of stationary points of the knot energies $E^α$ introduced by O'Hara in the range $α\in (2,3)$. In a first step we prove that $E^α$ is $C^1$ on the set of all regular embedded closed curves belonging to $H^{(α+1)/2,2}$ and calculate its derivative. After that we use the structure of the Euler-Lagrange equation to study the regularity of stationary points of $E^α$ plus a positive multiple of the length. We show that stationary points of finite energy are of class $C^\infty$ - so especially all local minimizers of $E^α$ among curves with fixed length are s…
University of Southern California（南加州大学）；KLA corporation（科磊公司）；North Carolina State University（北卡罗来纳州立大学）
We examine the structure and dimensionality of the Jones polynomial using manifold learning techniques. Our data set consists of more than 10 million knots up to 17 crossings and two other special families up to 2001 crossings. We introduce and describe a method for using filtrations to analyze infinite data sets where representative sampling is impossible or impractical, an essential requirement for working with knots and the data from knot invariants. In particular, this method provides a new approach for analyzing knot invariants using Principal Component Analysis. Using this approach on th…
Let n be any integer greater than two. We prove that there exists a projection P having the following properties. (1) P is not the projection of any unknotted knot. (2) The singular point set of P consists of double points. (3) P is the projection of an n-knot which is diffeomorphic to the standard sphere. We prove there exists an immersed n-sphere (in R^{n+1}\times{0}) which is not the projection of any n-knot (n>2). Note that the second theorem is different from the first one.
We illustrate from the viewpoint of braiding operations on WZNW conformal blocks how colored HOMFLY polynomials with multiplicity structure can detect mutations. As an example, we explicitly evaluate the (2,1)-colored HOMFLY polynomials that distinguish a famous mutant pair, Kinoshita-Terasaka and Conway knot.
We construct new knot polynomials. Let $V$ be the standard solid torus in 3-space and let $pr$ be its standard projection onto an annulus. Let $M$ be the space of all smooth oriented knots in $V$ such that the restriction of $pr$ is an immersion (e.g. regular diagrams of a classical knot in the complement of its meridian). There is a canonical one dimensional homology class for each connected component of $M$. We construct homomorphisms from the first homology group of $M$ into rings of Laurent polynomials. Each such homomorphism applied to the canonical homology class gives a knot invariant. …
We prove that a crossing change along a double point circle on a 2-knot is realized by ribbon-moves for a knotted torus obtained from the 2-knot by attaching a 1-handle. It follows that any 2-knots for which the crossing change is an unknotting operation, such as ribbon 2-knots and twist-spun knots, have trivial Khovanov-Jacobsson number.
The colored Jones function of a knot is a sequence of Laurent polynomials in one variable, whose n-th term is the Jones polynomial of the knot colored with the n-dimensional irreducible representation of SL(2). It was recently shown by TTQ Le and the author that the colored Jones function of a knot is q-holonomic, ie, that it satisfies a nontrivial linear recursion relation with appropriate coefficients. Using holonomicity, we introduce a geometric invariant of a knot: the characteristic variety, an affine 1-dimensional variety in C^2. We then compare it with the character variety of SL_2(C) r…
A minimal knot is the intersection of a topologically embedded branched minimal disk in $\mathbb{R}^4$ $\mathbb{C}^2 $ with a small sphere centered at the branch point. When the lowest order terms in each coordinate component of the embedding of the disk in $\mathbb{C}^2$ are enough to determine the knot type, we talk of a simple minimal knot. Such a knot is given by three integers $N < p,q$; denoted by $K(N,p,q)$, it can be parametrized in the cylinder as $e^{iθ}\mapsto (e^{Niθ},\sin qθ,\cos pθ)$. From this expression stems a natural representation of $K(N,p,q)$ as an $N$-braid. In this paper…
Consider a knot $K$ in $S^3$ with uniformly distributed electric charge. Whilst solutions to the Laplace equation in terms of Dirichlet integrals are readily available, it is still of theoretical and physical interest to understand the qualitative behavior of the potential, particularly with respect to critical points and equipotential surfaces. In this paper, we demonstrate how techniques from geometric topology can yield novel insights from the perspective of electrostatics. Specifically, we show that when the knot is sufficiently close to a planar projection, we prove a lower bound on the s…
We point out that the strong slope conjecture implies that the degrees of the colored Jones knot polynomials detect the figure eight knot. Furthermore, we propose a characterization of alternating knots in terms of the Jones period and the degree span of the colored Jones polynomial.
