arXiv research

Universal knot diagrams found in potholder curves.

To a rational homology sphere graph manifold one can associate a weighted tree invariant called splice diagram. It was shown earlier that the splice diagram determines the universal abelian cover of the manifold. We will in this article turn the proof of this in to an algorithm to explicitly construct the universal abe…

Given a rational homology sphere M, whose splice diagram satisfy the semigroup condition, Neumann and Wahl were able to define a complete intersection surface singularity called splice diagram singularity from the splice diagram of M. They were also able to show that under an additional hypothesis on M called the congr…

Persistence diagrams from random matrices follow RMT universality, offering a new spectral diagnostic.

To a rational homology sphere graph manifold one can associate a weighted tree invariant called splice diagram. In this article we prove a sufficient numerical condition on the splice diagram for a graph manifold to be a singularity link. We also show that if two manifolds have the same splice diagram, then their unive…

Grid diagrams define invariants for knots in lens spaces.

It was shown in my earlier article that the splice diagram of a rational homology sphere graph manifold determines the manifolds universal abelian cover. In this article we use the proof of this to give a condition on the splice diagram to determine when the universal abelian cover itself is a rational homology sphere.

The Reshetikhin-Turaev invariant, Turaev's TQFT, and many related constructions rely on the encoding of certain tangles (n-string links, or ribbon n-handles) as n-forms on the coend of a ribbon category. We introduce the monoidal category of Hopf diagrams, and describe a universal encoding of ribbon string links as Hop…

Generalizes meander diagrams to virtual knots and introduces new invariants.

Parity functors assign labels to knot diagrams based on crossing parity.

A `total Chern class' invariant of knots is defined. This is a universal Vassiliev invariant which is integral `on the level of Lie algebras' but it is not expressible as an integer sum of diagrams. The construction is motivated by similarities between the Kontsevich integral and the topological Chern character.

New index principle shows indistinguishability of certain knot crossings.

Study confirms equivalence of two knot invariants in specific cases.

Paper generalizes Kreweras triangle using universal sl_2 weight system.

We show that for a large class of hyperbolic knots and links, we can determine bounds on the volume of the link complement from combinatorial information given by a link diagram. Specifically, there is a universal constant C such that if a knot or link admits a prime, twist reduced diagram with at least 2 twist regions…

Paper defines and computes a new weight system for gl_N Lie algebra.

The paper introduces groupoid racks for spatial surfaces.

We show that Vassiliev invariants separate braids on a closed oriented surface, and we exhibit an universal Vassiliev invariant for these braids in terms of chord diagrams labeled by elements of the fundamental group of the considered surface.

We observe that any knot invariant extends to virtual knots. The isotopy classification problem for virtual knots is reduced to an algebraic problem formulated in terms of an algebra of arrow diagrams. We introduce a new notion of finite type invariant and show that the restriction of any such invariant of degree n to …

The paper calculates a specific weight system for chord diagrams with a particular graph structure.

Quantum invariants of 3-manifolds linked to splice diagrams.

An increasing sequence of integers is said to be universal for knots and links if every knot and link has a projection to the sphere such that the number of edges of each complementary face of the projection comes from the given sequence. This paper is an investigation into which sequences, either finite or infinite, a…

The Magnus expansion is a universal finite type invariant of pure braids with values in the space of horizontal chord diagrams. The Conway polynomial composed with the short circuit map from braids to knots gives rise to a series of finite type invariants of pure braids and thus factors through the Magnus map. We descr…

This is a simple mathematical introduction into Feynman diagram technique, which is a standard physical tool to write perturbative expansions of path integrals near a critical point of the action. I start from a rigorous treatment of a finite dimensional case (which actually belongs more to multivariable calculus than …

The universal Vassiliev-Kontsevich invariant is a functor from the category of tangles to a certain graded category of chord diagrams, compatible with the Vassiliev filtration and whose associated graded is an isomorphism. The Vassiliev filtration has a natural extension to tangles in any thickened surface $M\times I$ …

A horospherical torus about a cusp of a hyperbolic manifold inherits a Euclidean similarity structure, called a cusp shape. We bound the change in cusp shape when the hyperbolic structure of the manifold is deformed via cone deformation preserving the cusp. The bounds are in terms of the change in structure in a neighb…

Simplified KR polynomial for bipartite links reduces to tensor products of vector spaces.

An important geometric invariant of links in lens spaces is the lift in the 3-sphere of a link $L$ in $L(p,q)$, that is the counterimage $\widetilde L$ of $L$ under the universal covering of $L(p,q)$. If lens spaces are defined as a lens with suitable boundary identifications, then a link in $L(p,q)$ can be represented…

The diameter of a disc filling a loop in the universal covering of a Riemannian manifold may be measured extrinsically using the distance function on the ambient space or intrinsically using the induced length metric on the disc. Correspondingly, the diameter of a van Kampen diagram filling a word that represents the i…

New diagrams classify triply periodic entanglements.

Scannell and Sinha considered a spectral sequence to calculate the rational homotopy groups of spaces of long knots in n-dimensional Euclidean space, for n greater than or equal to 4. At the end of their paper they conjecture that when n is odd, the terms on the antidiagonal on the second page precisely give the space …

This paper is an introduction to the state sum model for the Alexander-Conway polynomial that was introduced in the the author's book "Formal Knot Theory" (Princeton University Press, 1983). The article outlines how Alexander's original definition of the polynomial as the determinant of a matrix associated with the lin…

New invariant distinguishes lens spaces via categorified homotopy E_3-algebra.

We show that the cusp volume of a hyperbolic alternating knot can be bounded above and below in terms of the twist number of an alternating diagram of the knot. This leads to diagrammatic estimates on lengths of slopes, and has some applications to Dehn surgery. Another consequence is that there is a universal lower bo…

Improved bounds linking entropy and volume in hyperbolic 3-manifolds.

We refine a Le and Murakami uniqueness theorem for the Kontsevich Integral in order to specify the relationship between the two (possibly equal) main universal link invariants: the Kontsevich Integral and the perturbative expression of the Chern-Simons theory. As a corollary, we prove that the Altschuler and Freidel an…

The paper introduces a cobordism for Khovanov homology crossing change and categorifies Vassiliev skein relations.

The paper describes topological properties of arcs and crossings in knot theory.

Study of Coxeter diagrams and Artin-Tits groups, focusing on normalisers and wall intersections.

New weight systems derived from a specific Lie algebra for knot invariants.

We associate a Taylor tower supplied by calculus of the embedding functor to the space of long knots and study its cohomology spectral sequence. The combinatorics of the spectral sequence along the line of total degree zero leads to chord diagrams with relations as in finite type knot theory. We show that the spectral …

This paper classifies periodic weaves and their universal cover, extending Tait's conjectures.

We show that the map on components from the space of classical long knots to the n-th stage of its Goodwillie-Weiss embedding calculus tower is a map of monoids whose target is an abelian group and which is invariant under clasper surgery. We deduce that this map on components is a finite type-(n-1) knot invariant. We …

Direct proof for Duflo isomorphism for arbitrary Lie algebras.

Lagrangian cobordisms are three-dimensional compact oriented cobordisms between once-punctured surfaces, subject to some homological conditions. We extend the Le-Murakami-Ohtsuki invariant of homology three-spheres to a functor from the category of Lagrangian cobordisms to a certain category of Jacobi diagrams. We prov…

Introduces XC-tangles for quantum tangle invariants.

Algorithm decides homeomorphism of 4-manifolds.

Survey of knot Floer homology and bordered algebra techniques.