Lorenz links and T-links are equivalent families by the work of Birman--Kofman. Lorenz links arise as periodic orbits of the Lorenz system, whereas T-links are closures of certain positive braids. Birman, Williams, and Franks showed that every Lorenz link admits a positive braid with a full twist realizing the braid index. We study Lorenz links from the minimal-braid viewpoint. We compute these representatives from the T-link parameters and show that they are precisely a family of positive braids with a full twist, called V-link braids. This gives an explicit correspondence between V-links and T-links. We use this correspondence to study equivalences among T-link presentations. We obtain criteria for distinguishing T-links from their parameters, recover the Birman--Kofman equivalence from the V-link/T-link correspondence, and prove that, under mild assumptions, this equivalence gives two distinct presentations of the same link. We also generalize this phenomenon: under natural non-degeneracy conditions, one obtains four distinct T-link presentations of the same link. More generally, even with the braid index fixed, the number of distinct V-link and T-link presentations can be arbit
Free-space optical communication links can enable high-capacity wireless connectivity in urban areas. We discuss the feasibility, challenges, and recent developments for high-capacity urban free-space optical links at kilometer scale.
We prove Fox's trapezoidal conjecture for the four-strand Turk's head knots and links $Th(4,q)$, for all $q\geq 1$. Equivalently, we show that the absolute values of the coefficients of the one-variable Alexander polynomial of $Th(4,q)$ form a trapezoidal sequence. The proof begins with a uniform Burau factorization for the closures of $(σ_1σ_2^{-1}σ_3)^q$, which expresses the Alexander polynomial in terms of reciprocal quadratic factors indexed by the $q$-th roots of unity. The odd and even exponent cases then follow from a common log-concavity argument based on a four-block smoothing theorem for reciprocal quartic factors.
The Benard-Conway invariant of links in the 3-sphere is a Casson-Lin type invariant defined by counting irreducible SU(2) representations of the link group with fixed meridional traces. For two-component links with linking number one, the invariant has been shown to equal a symmetrized multivariable link signature. We extend this result to all two-component links with non-zero linking number. A key ingredient in the proof is an explicit calculation of the Benard-Conway invariant for (2, 2n)-torus links with the help of the Chebyshev polynomials.
In "Homfly polynomial via an invariant of colored plane graphs", Murakami, Ohtsuki, and Yamada provide a state-sum description of the level $n$ Jones polynomial of an oriented link in terms of a suitable braided monoidal category whose morphisms are $\mathbb{Q}[q,q^{-1}]$-linear combinations of oriented trivalent planar graphs, and give a corresponding description for the HOMFLY-PT polynomial. We extend this construction and express the Khovanov-Rozansky homology of an oriented link in terms of a combinatorially defined category whose morphisms are equivalence classes of formal complexes of (formal direct sums of shifted) oriented trivalent plane graphs. By working combinatorially, one avoids many of the computational difficulties involved in the matrix factorization computations of the original Khovanov-Rozansky formulation: one systematically uses combinatorial relations satisfied by these matrix factorizations to simplify the computation at a level that is easily handled. By using this technique, we are able to provide a computation of the level $n$ Khovanov-Rozansky invariant of the 2-strand braid link with $k$ crossings, for arbitrary $n$ and $k$, confirming and extending prev
Virtual links are generalizations of classical links that can be represented by links embedded in a ``thickened'' surface $Σ\times I$, product of a Riemann surface of genus $h$ with an interval. In this paper, we show that virtual alternating links and tangles are naturally associated with the $1/N^2$ expansion of an integral over $N\times N$ complex matrices. We suggest that it is sufficient to count the equivalence classes of these diagrams modulo ordinary (planar) flypes. To test this hypothesis, we use an algorithm coding the corresponding Feynman diagrams by means of permutations that generates virtual diagrams up to 6 crossings and computes various invariants. Under this hypothesis, we use known results on matrix integrals to get the generating functions of virtual alternating tangles of genus 1 to 5 up to order 10 (i.e.\ 10 real crossings). The asymptotic behavior for $n$ large of the numbers of links and tangles of genus $h$ and with $n$ crossings is also computed for $h=1,2,3$ and conjectured for general $h$.
We consider links that are alternating on surfaces embedded in a compact 3-manifold. We show that under mild restrictions, the complement of the link decomposes into simpler pieces, generalising the polyhedral decomposition of alternating links of Menasco. We use this to prove various facts about the hyperbolic geometry of generalisations of alternating links, including weakly generalised alternating links described by the first author. We give diagrammatical properties that determine when such links are hyperbolic, find the geometry of their checkerboard surfaces, bound volume, and exclude exceptional Dehn fillings.
Quasi-alternating links are a generalization of alternating links. They are homologically thin for both Khovanov homology and knot Floer homology. Recent work of Greene and joint work of the first author with Kofman resulted in the classification of quasi-alternating pretzel links in terms of their integer tassel parameters. Replacing tassels by rational tangles generalizes pretzel links to Montesinos links. In this paper we establish conditions on the rational parameters of a Montesinos link to be quasi-alternating. Using recent results on left-orderable groups and Heegaard Floer L-spaces, we also establish conditions on the rational parameters of a Montesinos link to be non-quasi-alternating. We discuss examples which are not covered by the above results.
We introduce the (general) homotopy groups of spheres as link invariants for Brunnian-type links through the investigations on the intersection subgroup of the normal closures of the meridians of strongly nonsplittable links. The homotopy groups measure the difference between the intersection subgroup and symmetric commutator subgroup of the normal closures of the meridians and give the invariants of the links obtained in this way. Moreover the higher homotopy-group invariants can produce some links that could not be detected by the Milnor invariants. Furthermore all homotopy groups of spheres can be obtained from the geometric Massey products on links.
It it known that the set of L-space surgeries on a nontrivial L-space knot is always bounded from below. However, already for two-component torus links the set of L-space surgeries might be unbounded from below. For algebraic two-component links we provide three complete characterizations for the boundedness from below: one in terms of the $h$-function, one in terms of the Alexander polynomial, and one in terms of the embedded resolution graph. They show that the set of L-space surgeries is bounded from below for most algebraic links. In fact, the used property of the $h$-function is a sufficient condition for non-algebraic L-space links as well.
We introduce new skein invariants of links based on a procedure where we first apply the skein relation only to crossings of distinct components, so as to produce collections of unlinked knots. We then evaluate the resulting knots using a given invariant. A skein invariant can be computed on each link solely by the use of skein relations and a set of initial conditions. The new procedure, remarkably, leads to generalizations of the known skein invariants. We make skein invariants of classical links, $H[R]$, $K[Q]$ and $D[T]$, based on the invariants of knots, $R$, $Q$ and $T$, denoting the regular isotopy version of the Homflypt polynomial, the Kauffman polynomial and the Dubrovnik polynomial. We provide skein theoretic proofs of the well-definedness of these invariants. These invariants are also reformulated into summations of the generating invariants ($R$, $Q$, $T$) on sublinks of a given link $L$, obtained by partitioning $L$ into collections of sublinks.
We describe a construction procedure of infinite sets of $2$-links in closed simply connected 4-manifolds that are topologically isotopic, smoothly inequivalent and componentwise topologically unknotted. These 2-links are the first examples of such kind in the literature. The examples provided have surface and free groups as their 2-link groups. We also point out an exotic Brunnian behaviour of such families, which highlights the important role of linking in creating exotic phenomena.
We determine prime amphicheiral links with at least 2 components and up to 11 crossings. There are 27 such links. We check also special amphicheiralities. Most of prime links with up to 11 crossings are detected not to be amphicheiral by a condition on the Jones polynomial. For the rest links, we applied conditions from the Alexander polynomial. We added new necessary conditions for a special case.
In this paper, we introduce LINKS, a dataset of 100 million one degree of freedom planar linkage mechanisms and 1.1 billion coupler curves, which is more than 1000 times larger than any existing database of planar mechanisms and is not limited to specific kinds of mechanisms such as four-bars, six-bars, \etc which are typically what most databases include. LINKS is made up of various components including 100 million mechanisms, the simulation data for each mechanism, normalized paths generated by each mechanism, a curated set of paths, the code used to generate the data and simulate mechanisms, and a live web demo for interactive design of linkage mechanisms. The curated paths are provided as a measure for removing biases in the paths generated by mechanisms that enable a more even design space representation. In this paper, we discuss the details of how we can generate such a large dataset and how we can overcome major issues with such scales. To be able to generate such a large dataset we introduce a new operator to generate 1-DOF mechanism topologies, furthermore, we take many steps to speed up slow simulations of mechanisms by vectorizing our simulations and parallelizing our s
Bott and Taubes constructed knot invariants by integrating differential forms along the fiber of a bundle over the space of knots, generalizing the Gauss linking integral. Their techniques were later used to construct real cohomology classes in spaces of knots and links in higher-dimensional Euclidean spaces. In previous work, we constructed cohomology classes in knot spaces with arbitrary coefficients by integrating via a Pontrjagin--Thom construction. We carry out a similar construction over the space of string links, but with a refinement in which configuration spaces are glued together according to the combinatorics of weight systems. This gluing is somewhat similar to work of Kuperberg and Thurston. We use a formula of Mellor for weight systems of Milnor invariants, and we thus recover the Milnor triple linking number for string links, which is in some sense the simplest interesting example of a class obtained by this gluing refinement of our previous methods. Along the way, we find a description of this triple linking number as a "degree" of a map from the 6-sphere to a quotient of the product of three 2-spheres.
The purpose of this erratum is to fill a gap in the proof of the `Composite Braid Theorem' in the manuscript "Studying Links Via Closed Braids IV: Composite Links and Split Links (SLVCB-IV)", Inventiones Math, \{bf 102\} Fasc. 1 (1990), 115-139. The statement of the theorem is unchanged. The gap occurs on page 135, lines $13^-$ to $11^-$, where we fail to consider the case: $V_2 = 4, V_4 > 0, V_j=0$ if $j not= 2,4,$ and all 4 vertices of valence 2 are bad. At the end of this Erratum we make some brief remarks on the literature, as it has evolved during the 14 years between the publication of SLVCB-IV and the submission of this Erratum.
In this paper we apply the twisted Alexander polynomial to study the fibering and genus detecting problems for oriented links. In particular we generalize a conjecture of Dunfield, Friedl and Jackson on the torsion polynomial of hyperbolic knots to hyperbolic links, and confirm it for an infinite family of hyperbolic 2-bridge links. Moreover we consider a similar problem for parabolic representations of 2-bridge link groups.
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.
We construct an infinite tower of covering spaces over the configuration space of $n-1$ distinct non-zero points in the complex plane. This results in an action of the braid group $\mathbb{B}_n$ on the set of $n$-adic integers $\mathbb{Z}_n$ for all natural numbers $n\geq 2$. We study some of the properties of these actions such as continuity and transitivity. The construction of the actions involves a new way of associating to any braid $B$ an infinite sequence of braids, whose braid types are invariants of $B$. We present computations for the cases of $n=2$ and $n=3$ and use these to show that an infinite family of braids close to real algebraic links, i.e., links of isolated singularities of real polynomials $\mathbb{R}^4\to\mathbb{R}^2$.
We define a Khovanov homotopy type for $sl_2(\mathbb{C})$ colored links and quantum spin networks and derive some of its basic properties. In the case of $n$-colored B-adequate links, we show a stabilization of the homotopy types as the coloring $n\rightarrow\infty$, generalizing the tail behavior of the colored Jones polynomial. Finally, we also provide an alternative, simpler stabilization in the case of the colored unknot.