16 research outputs found
Unknotting numbers and triple point cancelling numbers of torus-covering knots
It is known that any surface knot can be transformed to an unknotted surface
knot or a surface knot which has a diagram with no triple points by a finite
number of 1-handle additions. The minimum number of such 1-handles is called
the unknotting number or the triple point cancelling number, respectively. In
this paper, we give upper bounds and lower bounds of unknotting numbers and
triple point cancelling numbers of torus-covering knots, which are surface
knots in the form of coverings over the standard torus . Upper bounds are
given by using -charts on presenting torus-covering knots, and lower
bounds are given by using quandle colorings and quandle cocycle invariants.Comment: 26 pages, 14 figures, added Corollary 1.7, to appear in J. Knot
Theory Ramification
Homotopy on spatial graphs and generalized Sato-Levine invariants
Edge-homotopy and vertex-homotopy are equivalence relations on spatial graphs
which are generalizations of Milnor's link-homotopy. Fleming and the author
introduced some edge (resp. vertex)-homotopy invariants of spatial graphs by
applying the Sato-Levine invariant for the constituent 2-component
algebraically split links. In this paper, we construct some new edge (resp.
vertex)-homotopy invariants of spatial graphs without any restriction of
linking numbers of the constituent 2-component links by applying the
generalized Sato-Levine invariant.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figure
String theory and the Kauffman polynomial
We propose a new, precise integrality conjecture for the colored Kauffman
polynomial of knots and links inspired by large N dualities and the structure
of topological string theory on orientifolds. According to this conjecture, the
natural knot invariant in an unoriented theory involves both the colored
Kauffman polynomial and the colored HOMFLY polynomial for composite
representations, i.e. it involves the full HOMFLY skein of the annulus. The
conjecture sheds new light on the relationship between the Kauffman and the
HOMFLY polynomials, and it implies for example Rudolph's theorem. We provide
various non-trivial tests of the conjecture and we sketch the string theory
arguments that lead to it.Comment: 36 pages, many figures; references and examples added, typos
corrected, final version to appear in CM