arXiv research

Study on distinguishing mutant knots using specific representations.

Pairs of genus 2 mutant knots can have different Homfly polynomials, for example some 3-string satellites of Conway mutant pairs. We give examples which have different Kauffman 3-variable polynomials, answering a question raised by Dunfield et al in their study of genus 2 mutants. While pairs of genus 2 mutant knots ha…

Details of quantum knot invariant calculations using a specific SU(3)_q-module are given which distinguish the Conway and Kinoshita-Teresaka pair of mutant knots. Features of Kuperberg's skein-theoretic techniques for SU(3)_q invariants in the context of mutant knots are also discussed.

We exhibit an infinite family of knots with isomorphic knot Heegaard Floer homology. Each knot in this infinite family admits a nontrivial genus two mutant which shares the same total dimension in both knot Floer homology and Khovanov homology. Each knot is distinguished from its genus two mutant by both knot Floer hom…

We present a notion of mutation of hyperbolic polyhedra, analogous to mutation in knot theory, and then present a general question about commensurability of mutant pairs of polyhedra. We motivate that question with several concrete examples of mutant pairs for which commensurability is unknown. The polyhedra we conside…

A pretzel knot $K$ is called $odd$ if all its twist parameters are odd, and $mutant$ $ribbon$ if it is mutant to a simple ribbon knot. We prove that the family of odd, 5-stranded pretzel knots satisfies a weaker version of the Slice-Ribbon Conjecture: All slice, odd, 5-stranded pretzel knots are $mutant$ $ribbon$. We d…

Mutant knots, in the sense of Conway, are known to share the same Homfly polynomial. Their 2-string satellites also share the same Homfly polynomial, but in general their m-string satellites can have different Homfly polynomials for m>2. We show that, under conditions of extra symmetry on the constituent 2-tangles, the…

Let $\mathcal{L}$ be a knot with a fixed positive crossing and $\mathcal{L}_n$ the link obtained by replacing this crossing with $n$ positive twists. We prove that the knot Floer homology $\widehat{\text{HFK}}(\mathcal{L}_n)$ `stabilizes' as $n$ goes to infinity. This categorifies a similar stabilization phenomenon of …

We prove that if a finite order knot invariant does not distinguish mutant knots, then the corresponding weight system depends on the intersection graph of a chord diagram rather than on the diagram itself. The converse statement is easy and well known. We discuss relationship between our results and certain Lie algebr…

We prove that many pretzel knots of the form $P(2n,m,-2n\pm1,-m)$ are not topologically slice, even though their positive mutants $P(2n, -2n\pm1, m, -m)$ are ribbon. We use the sliceness obstruction of Kirk and Livingston related to the twisted Alexander polynomials associated to prime power cyclic covers of knots.

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.

Many knots and links in S^3 can be drawn as gluing of three manifolds with one or more four-punctured S^2 boundaries. We call these knot diagrams as double fat graphs whose invariants involve only the knowledge of the fusion and the braiding matrices of four-strand braids. Incorporating the properties of four-point con…

New framework distinguishes knots via neighborhood invariants.

Classifies prime algebraic tangles up to 14 crossings.

Kearton observed that mutation can change the concordance class of a knot. A close examination of his example reveals that it is of 4-genus 1 and has a mutant of 4-genus 0. The first goal of this paper is to construct examples to show that for any pair of nonnegative integers m and n there is a knot of 4-genus m with a…

Jones polynomial coincidences explored for rational knots.

A knot is said to be slice if it bounds a smooth properly embedded disk in the 4-ball. We demonstrate that the Conway knot, 11n34 in the Rolfsen tables, is not slice. This completes the classification of slice knots under 13 crossings, and gives the first example of a non-slice knot which is both topologically slice an…

We show examples of knots with the same polynomial invariants and hyperbolic volumes, with variously coinciding 2-cable polynomials and colored Jones polynomials, which are not mutants.

For the alternating knots or links, mutations do not change the arc index. In the case of nonalternating knots, some semi-alternating knots or links have this property. We mainly focus on the problem of mutation invariance of the arc index for nonalternating knots which are not semi-alternating. In this paper, we found…

We provide a framework for studying the interplay between concordance and positive mutation and identify some of the basic structures relating the two. The fundamental result in understanding knot concordance is the structure theorem proved by Levine: for n>1 there is an isomorphism phi from the concordance group C_n o…

We extend knot contact homology to a theory over the ring $\mathbb{Z}[λ^{\pm 1},μ^{\pm 1}]$, with the invariant given topologically and combinatorially. The improved invariant, which is defined for framed knots in $S^3$ and can be generalized to knots in arbitrary manifolds, distinguishes the unknot and can distinguish…

Given a knot, we ask how its Khovanov and Khovanov-Rozansky homologies change under the operation of introducing twists in a pair of strands. We obtain long exact sequences in homology and further algebraic structure which is then used to derive topological and computational results. Two of our applications include giv…

With the help of a new program, we do computations concerning the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev representations of mapping class groups. In particular we distinguish some mutant fibered knots. The program can be downloaded from http://www.geometrie.ch/TQFT

A new polynomial invariant for strongly involutive links.

Using a combinatorial approach described in a recent paper of Manolescu, Ozsváth, and Sarkar we compute the Heegaard-Floer knot homology of all knots with at most 12 crossings as well as the $τ$ invariant for knots through 11 crossings. We review the basic construction of \cite{MOS}, giving two examples that can be wor…

In this paper we present a sequence of link invariants, defined from twisted Alexander polynomials, and discuss their effectiveness in distinguish knots. In particular, we recast and extend by geometric means a recent result of Silver and Williams on the nontriviality of twisted Alexander polynomials for nontrivial kno…

In an earlier paper, we introduced a collection of graded Abelian groups $\HFKa(Y,K)$ associated to knots in a three-manifold. The aim of the present paper is to investigate these groups for several specific families of knots, including the Kinoshita-Terasaka knots and their ``Conway mutants''. These results show that …

This paper gives an alternate definition of the Affine Index Polynomial (called the Wriggle Polynomial) using virtual linking numbers and explores applications of this polynomial. In particular, it proves the Cosmetic Crossing Change Conjecture for odd virtual knots and pure virtual knots. It also demonstrates that the…

Given a knot complement X and its p-fold cyclic cover X_p, we identify twisted polynomials associated to 1-dimensional linear representations of the fundamental group of X_p with twisted polynomials associated to related p-dimensional linear representations of the fundamental group of X. This provides a simpler and fas…

This paper starts a systematic description of colored knot polynomials, beginning from the first non-(anti)symmetric representation R=[2,1]. The project involves several steps: (i) parametrization of big families of knots a la arXiv:1506.00339, (ii) evaluating Racah/mixing matrices for various numbers of strands in var…

In the previous paper the author defined an infinite order plug $(P,\varphi)$ which gives rise to infinite Fintushel-Stern's knot-surgeries. Here, we give two 4-dimensional infinitely many exotic families $Y_n$, $Z_n$ of exotic enlargements of the plug. The families $Y_n$, $Z_n$ have $b_2=3$, $4$ and the boundaries are…

Besides offering a friendly introduction to knot homologies and quantum curves, the goal of these lectures is to review some of the concrete predictions that follow from the physical interpretation of knot homologies. In particular, this interpretation allows one to pose questions that would not have been asked otherwi…

It is known that the first two-variable Links--Gould quantum link invariant $LG\equiv LG^{2,1}$ is more powerful than the HOMFLYPT and Kauffman polynomials, in that it distinguishes all prime knots (including reflections) of up to 10 crossings. Here we report investigations which greatly expand the set of evaluations o…

The motivation for this work was to construct a nontrivial knot with trivial Jones polynomial. Although that open problem has not yielded, the methods are useful for other problems in the theory of knot polynomials. The subject of the present paper is a generalization of Conway's mutation of knots and links. Instead of…

We show that the zeroth coefficient of the cables of the HOMFLY polynomial (colored HOMFLY polynomials) does not distinguish mutants. This makes a sharp contrast with the total HOMFLY polynomial whose 3-cables can distinguish mutants.

By now it is well established that the quantum dimensions of descendants of the adjoint representation can be described in a universal form, independent of a particular family of simple Lie algebras. The Rosso-Jones formula then implies a universal description of the adjoint knot polynomials for torus knots, which in p…

Given a self-diffeomorphism h of a closed, orientable surface S and an embedding f of S into a three-manifold M, we construct a mutant manifold N by cutting M along f(S) and regluing by h. We will consider whether there are any gluings such that for any embedding, the manifold and its mutant have isomorphic Heegaard Fl…

Using the duality between Wilson loop expectation values of SU(N) Chern-Simons theory on $S^3$ and topological open-string amplitudes on the local mirror of the resolved conifold, we study knots on $S^3$ and their invariants encoded in colored HOMFLY polynomials by means of topological recursion. In the context of the …

Given any oriented link diagram, two types of new knot invariants are constructed. They satisfy some generalized skein relations. The coefficients of each invariant is from a commutative ring. Homomorphisms and representations of those rings define new link invariants. For example, the HOMFLYPT polynomial with three va…

We survey generalisations of the Chang-Skjelbred Lemma for integral coefficients. Moreover, we construct examples of manifolds with actions of tori of rank > 2 whose equivariant cohomology is torsion-free, but not free. This answers a question of Allday's. The "mutants" we construct are obtained from compactified repre…

A new invariant for links generalizes Alexander polynomial for sl_3.

This article introduces a natural extension of colouring numbers of knots, called colouring polynomials, and studies their relationship to Yang-Baxter invariants and quandle 2-cocycle invariants. For a knot K in the 3-sphere let π_K be the fundamental group of the knot complement, and let (m_K,l_K) be a meridian-longit…

Dihedral linking invariant uses knot colorings to distinguish knots.

Khovanov homology ist a new link invariant, discovered by M. Khovanov, and used by J. Rasmussen to give a combinatorial proof of the Milnor conjecture. In this thesis, we give examples of mutant links with different Khovanov homology. We prove that Khovanov's chain complex retracts to a subcomplex, whose generators are…

With the help of the evolution method we calculate all HOMFLY polynomials in all symmetric representations [r] for a huge family of (generalized) pretzel links, which are made from g+1 two strand braids, parallel or antiparallel, and depend on g+1 integer numbers. We demonstrate that they possess a pronounced new struc…

We give an algorithm for computing the Teichmüller polynomial for a certain class of fibered alternating links associated to trees. Furthermore, we exhibit a mutant pair of such links distinguished by the Teichmüller polynomial.

We present an easy example of mutant links with different Khovanov homology. The existence of such an example is important because it shows that Khovanov homology cannot be defined with a skein rule similar to the skein relation for the Jones polynomial.

Motivation: Proteins are known to undergo conformational changes in the course of their functions. The changes in conformation are often attributable to a small fraction of residues within the protein. Therefore identification of these variable regions is important for an understanding of protein function. Results: We …