Invariants of genus 2 mutants

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 have the same Jones polynomial, given from the Homfly polynomial by setting v=s^2, we give examples whose Homfly polynomials differ when v=s^3. We also give examples which differ in a Vassiliev invariant of degree 7, in contrast to satellites of Conway mutant knots.Comment: 16 pages, 20 figure

Braids: A Survey

This article is about Artin's braid group and its role in knot theory. We set ourselves two goals: (i) to provide enough of the essential background so that our review would be accessible to graduate students, and (ii) to focus on those parts of the subject in which major progress was made, or interesting new proofs of known results were discovered, during the past 20 years. A central theme that we try to develop is to show ways in which structure first discovered in the braid groups generalizes to structure in Garside groups, Artin groups and surface mapping class groups. However, the literature is extensive, and for reasons of space our coverage necessarily omits many very interesting developments. Open problems are noted and so-labelled, as we encounter them.Comment: Final version, revised to take account of the comments of readers. A review article, to appear in the Handbook of Knot Theory, edited by W. Menasco and M. Thistlethwaite. 91 pages, 24 figure

Automatic Evaluation of the Links-Gould Invariant for all Prime Knots of up to 10 Crossings

This paper describes a method for the automatic evaluation of the Links-Gould two-variable polynomial link invariant (LG) for any link, given only a braid presentation. This method is currently feasible for the evaluation of LG for links for which we have a braid presentation of string index at most 5. Data are presented for the invariant, for all prime knots of up to 10 crossings and various other links. LG distinguishes between these links, and also detects the chirality of those that are chiral. In this sense, it is more sensitive than the well-known two-variable HOMFLY and Kauffman polynomials. When applied to examples which defeat the HOMFLY invariant, interestingly, LG `almost' fails. The automatic method is in fact applicable to the evaluation of any such state sum invariant for which an appropriate R matrix and cap and cup matrices have been determined.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figures. Minor corrections and references added since version