arXiv research

New links show arbitrarily large torsion in Khovanov cohomology.

We generalize the Khovanov-Rozansky cohomology for n=2 by means of a homogeneous potential that depends on two parameters, to obtain the universal Khovanov-Rozansky sl(2) link cohomology. This theory is equivalent to the universal foam sl(2) link cohomology, after tensoring both theories with appropriate rings.

We prove that the hypothetical extreme Khovanov cohomology of a link is the cohomology of the independence simplicial complex of its Lando graph. We also provide a family of knots having as many non-trivial extreme Khovanov cohomology modules as desired, that is, examples of $H$-thick knots which are as far of being $H…

This paper realises the Khovanov homology of a link in the 3-sphere as a Lagrangian Floer cohomology group, establishing a conjecture of Seidel and the second author. The starting point is the previously established formality theorem for the symplectic arc algebra over a field k of characteristic zero. Here we prove th…

New equivariant version of Khovanov homology for annuli.

We review Bennequin type inequalities established using various versions of the Khovanov-Rozansky cohomology. Then we give a new proof of a Bennequin type inequality established by the author, and derive new Bennequin type inequalities for knots using Gornik's version of the Khovanov-Rozansky cohomology, which generali…

New operators in Khovanov-Rozansky homology exhibit symmetry.

In a previous paper we constructed a spectrum-level refinement of Khovanov homology. This refinement induces stable cohomology operations on Khovanov homology. In this paper we show that these cohomology operations commute with cobordism maps on Khovanov homology. As a consequence we obtain a refinement of Rasmussen's …

Alternative proof of Khovanov's up-to-sign functoriality for odd Khovanov homology.

Given an $m$-periodic link $L\subset S^3$, we show that the Khovanov spectrum $\mathcal{X}_L$ constructed by Lipshitz and Sarkar admits a homology group action. We relate the Borel cohomology of $\mathcal{X}_L$ to the equivariant Khovanov homology of $L$ constructed by the second author. The action of Steenrod algebra …

We prove the quantum filtration on the Khovanov-Rozansky link cohomology H_p with a general degree (n+1) monic potential polynomial p(x) is invariant under Reidemeister moves, and construct a spectral sequence converging to H_p that is invariant under Reidemeister moves, whose E_1 term is isomorphic to the Khovanov-Roz…

We prove a formality theorem for the Fukaya categories of the symplectic manifolds underlying symplectic Khovanov cohomology, over fields of characteristic zero. The key ingredient is the construction of a degree one Hochschild cohomology class on a Floer A-infinity algebra associated to the (k,k)-nilpotent slice Y, ob…

We prove that a knot is the unknot if and only if its reduced Khovanov cohomology has rank 1. The proof has two steps. We show first that there is a spectral sequence beginning with the reduced Khovanov cohomology and abutting to a knot homology defined using singular instantons. We then show that the latter homology i…

Link homology compared with geometric link invariants using Bott-Samelson varieties.

The Lipshitz-Sarkar stable homotopy link invariant defines Steenrod squares on the Khovanov cohomology of a link. Lipshitz-Sarkar constructed an algorithm for computing the first two Steenrod squares. We develop a new algorithm which implements the flow category simplification techniques previously defined by the autho…

New geometric model for knot homology using monodromic Hecke category.

For any graph G we define bigraded cohomology groups whose graded Euler characteristic is a multiple of the Yamada polynomial of G.

We describe stable cup-i products on the cochain complex with $F^2$ coefficients of any augmented semi-simplicial object in the Burnside category. An example of such an object is the Khovanov functor of Lawson, Lipshitz and Sarkar. Thus we obtain explicit formulas for cohomology operations on the Khovanov homology of a…

Khovanov homology for knots has generated a flurry of activity in the topology community. This paper studies the Khovanov type cohomology for graphs with a special attention to torsions. When the underlying algebra is $\mathbb{Z}[x]/(x^2)$, we determine precisely those graphs whose cohomology contains torsion. For a la…

Khovanov introduced a cohomology theory for oriented classical links whose graded Euler characteristic is the Jones polynomial. Since Khovanov's theory is functorial for link cobordisms between classical links, we obtain an invariant of a surface-knot, called the {\it Khovanov-Jacobsson number}, by considering the surf…

We extend Lipshitz-Sarkar's definition of a stable homotopy type associated to a link L whose cohomology recovers the Khovanov cohomology of L. Given an assignment c (called a coloring) of positive integer to each component of a link L, we define a stable homotopy type X_col(L_c) whose cohomology recovers the c-colored…

For each link L in S^3 and every quantum grading j, we construct a stable homotopy type X^j_o(L) whose cohomology recovers Ozsvath-Rasmussen-Szabo's odd Khovanov homology, H_i(X^j_o(L)) = Kh^{i,j}_o(L), following a construction of Lawson-Lipshitz-Sarkar of the even Khovanov stable homotopy type. Furthermore, the odd Kh…

The algebra of truncated polynomials A_m=Z[x]/(x^m) plays an important role in the theory of Khovanov and Khovanov-Rozansky homology of links. We have demonstrated that Hochschild homology is closely related to Khovanov homology via comultiplication free graph cohomology. It is not difficult to compute Hochschild homol…

In this note we make an attempt to compare a cohomological theory of Hilbert spaces of ground states in the ${\cal N}=(2,2)$ 2d Landau-Ginzburg theory in models describing link embeddings in ${\mathbb{R}}^3$ to Khovanov and Khovanov-Rozansky homologies. To confirm the equivalence we exploit the invariance of Hilbert sp…

For each positive integer n, Khovanov and Rozansky constructed an invariant of links in the form of a doubly-graded cohomology theory whose Euler characteristic is the sl(n) link polynomial. We use Lagrangian Floer cohomology on some suitable affine varieties to build a similar series of link invariants, and we conject…

We consider Lagrangian Floer cohomology for a pair of Lagrangian submanifolds in a symplectic manifold M. Suppose that M carries a symplectic involution, which preserves both submanifolds. Under various topological hypotheses, we prove a localization theorem for Floer cohomology, which implies a Smith-type inequality f…

Squeezed knots are slices of minimal cobordisms; obstructions come from quantum knot invariants.

The abstract describes a strategy to construct reduced Khovanov homology for links in lens spaces.

New operations match Steenrod squares on Khovanov homology.

There exists a simplified Bar-Natan Khovanov complex for open 2-braids. The Khovanov cohomology of a knot diagram made by gluing tangles of this type is therefore often amenable to calculation. We lift this idea to the level of the Lipshitz-Sarkar stable homotopy type and use it to make new computations. Similarly, the…

Simplified Khovanov-Rozansky operators for link invariants.

We establish some inequalities about the Khovanov-Rozansky cohomologies of braids. These give new upper bounds of the self-linking numbers of transversal links in standard contact $S^3$ which is sharper than the well known bound given by the HOMFLY polynomial. We also introduce a sequence of transversal link invariants…

Given a link diagram L we construct spectra X^j(L) so that the Khovanov homology Kh^{i,j}(L) is isomorphic to the (reduced) singular cohomology H^i(X^j(L)). The construction of X^j(L) is combinatorial and explicit. We prove that the homotopy type of X^j(L) depends only on the isotopy class of the corresponding link.

For every positive integer $n$ we construct a bigraded homology theory for links, such that the corresponding invariant of the unknot is closely related to the U(n)-equivariant cohomology ring of $\mathbb{CP}^{n-1}$; our construction specializes to the Khovanov-Rozansky $sl_n$-homology. We are motivated by the "univers…

The goal of this paper is to address A. Shumakovitch's conjecture about the existence of $\Z_2$-torsion in Khovanov link homology. We analyze torsion in Khovanov homology of semi-adequate links via chromatic cohomology for graphs which provides a link between the link homology and well-developed theory of Hochschild ho…

For each graph we construct graded cohomology groups whose graded Euler characteristic is the chromatic polynomial of the graph. We show the cohomology groups satisfy a long exact sequence which corresponds to the well-known deletion-contraction rule. This work is motivated by Khovanov's work on categorification of the…

We use the divide-and-conquer and scanning algorithms for calculating Khovanov cohomology directly on the Lee- or Bar-Natan deformations of the Khovanov complex to give an alternative way to compute Rasmussen $s$-invariants of knots. By disregarding generators away from homological degree 0 we can considerably improve …

We continue to develop the tensor-algebra approach to knot polynomials with the goal to present the story in elementary and comprehensible form. The previously reviewed description of Khovanov cohomologies for the gauge group of rank N-1=1 was based on the cut-and-join calculus of the planar cycles, which are involved …

It is well-known that generic perturbations of the complex Frobenius algebra used to define Khovanov cohomology each give rise to Rasmussen's concordance invariant s. This gives a concordance homomorphism to the integers and a strong lower bound on the smooth slice genus of a knot. Similar behavior has been observed in…

Springer varieties are studied because their cohomology carries a natural action of the symmetric group $S_n$ and their top-dimensional cohomology is irreducible. In his work on tangle invariants, Khovanov constructed a family of Springer varieties $X_n$ as subvarieties of the product of spheres $(S^2)^n$. We show that…

Seidel-Smith and Hendricks used equivariant Floer cohomology to define some spectral sequences from symplectic Khovanov homology and Heegaard Floer homology. These spectral sequences give rise to Smith-type inequalities. Similar-looking spectral sequences have been defined by Lee, Bar-Natan, Ozsváth-Szabó, Lipshitz-Tre…

We define additional gradings on two generalisations of Khovanov homology (one due to the first author, the other due to the second), and use them to define invariants of various kinds of embeddings. These include invariants of links in thickened surfaces and of surfaces embedded in thickened $3$-manifolds. In particul…

We pursue the analogy of a framed flow category with the flow data of a Morse function. In classical Morse theory, Morse functions can sometimes be locally altered and simplified by the Morse moves. These moves include the Whitney trick which removes two oppositely framed flowlines between critical points of adjacent i…

The paper studies knots in projective space using virtual link theory.

For a fixed parabolic subalgebra p of gl(n,C) we prove that the centre of the principal block O(p) of the parabolic category O is naturally isomorphic to the cohomology ring of the corresponding Springer fibre. We give a diagrammatic description of O(p) for maximal parabolic p and give an explicit isomorphism to Braden…

We investigate the filtered theory corresponding to the universal sl(2) foam cohomology $H_{a,h}$ for links, where a and h are complex numbers. We show that there is a spectral sequence converging to $H_{a,h}$ which is invariant under the Reidemeister moves, and whose E1 term is isomorphic to Khovanov homology. This sp…

Framed flow categories were introduced by Cohen-Jones-Segal as a way of encoding the flow data associated to a Floer functional. A framed flow category gives rise to a CW-complex with one cell for each object of the category. The idea is that the Floer invariant should take the form of the stable homotopy type of the r…

In this paper we use Kuperberg's $\mathfrak{sl}_3$-webs and Khovanov's $\mathfrak{sl}_3$-foams to define a new algebra $K^S$, which we call the $\mathfrak{sl}_3$-web algebra. It is the $\mathfrak{sl}_3$ analogue of Khovanov's arc algebra. We prove that $K^S$ is a graded symmetric Frobenius algebra. Furthermore, we cate…