New Quantum Invariants of Planar Knotoids

In this paper we discuss the applications of knotoids to modelling knots in open curves and produce new knotoid invariants. We show how invariants of knotoids generally give rise to well-behaved measures of how much an open curve is knotted. We define biframed planar knotoids, and construct new invariants of these objects that can be computed in polynomial time. As an application of these invariants we improve the classification of planar knotoids with up to five crossings by distinguishing several pairs of prime knotoids that were conjectured to be distinct by Goundaroulis et al.Comment: 29 pages, 21 figures, comments are welcom

Knotoids

We introduce and study knotoids. Knotoids are represented by diagrams in a surface which differ from the usual knot diagrams in that the underlying curve is a segment rather than a circle. Knotoid diagrams are considered up to Reidemeister moves applied away from the endpoints of the underlying segment. We show that knotoids in $S^2$ generalize knots in $S^3$ and study the semigroup of knotoids. We also discuss applications to knots and invariants of knotoids.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figures. References update

Graphoids

We study invariants of virtual graphoids, which are virtual spatial graph diagrams with two distinguished degree-one vertices modulo graph Reidemeister moves applied away from the distinguished vertices. Generalizing previously known results, we give topological interpretations of graphoids. There are several applications to virtual graphoid theory. First, virtual graphoids are suitable objects for studying knotted graphs with open ends arising in proteins. Second, a virtual graphoid can be thought of as a way to represent a virtual spatial graph without using as many crossings, which can be advantageous for computing invariants