No Arabic abstract
We start a systematic analysis of links up to 5-move equivalence. Our motivation is to develop tools which later can be used to study skein modules based on the skein relation being deformation of a 5-move (in an analogous way as the Kauffman skein module is a deformation of a 2-move, i.e. a crossing change). Our main tools are Jones and Kauffman polynomials and the fundamental group of the 2-fold branch cover of S^3 along a link. We use also the fact that a 5-move is a composition of two rational pm (2,2)-moves (i.e. pm 5/2-moves) and rational moves can be analyzed using the group of Fox colorings and its non-abelian version, the Burnside group of a link. One curious observation is that links related by one (2,2)-move are not 5-move equivalent. In particular, we partially classify (up to 5-moves) 3-braids, pretzel and Montesinos links, and links up to 9 crossings.
We consider Milnor invariants for certain covering links as a generalization of covering linkage invariants formulated by R. Hartley and K. Murasugi. A set of Milnor invariants for covering links is a cobordism invariant of a link, and that this invariant can distinguish some links for which the ordinary Milnor invariants coincide. Moreover, for a Brunnian link $L$, the first non-vanishing Milnor invariants of $L$ is modulo-$2$ congruent to a sum of Milnor invariants of covering links. As a consequence, a sum of linking numbers of iterated covering links gives the first non-vanishing Milnor invariant of $L$ modulo $2$.
Kashaev and Reshetikhin previously described a way to define holonomy invariants of knots using quantum $mathfrak{sl}_2$ at a root of unity. These are generalized quantum invariants depend both on a knot $K$ and a representation of the fundamental group of its complement into $mathrm{SL}_2(mathbb{C})$; equivalently, we can think of $mathrm{KR}(K)$ as associating to each knot a function on (a slight generalization of) its character variety. In this paper we clarify some details of their construction. In particular, we show that for $K$ a hyperbolic knot $mathrm{KaRe}(K)$ can be viewed as a function on the geometric component of the $A$-polynomial curve of $K$. We compute some examples at a third root of unity.
We generalize the notion of the quandle polynomial to the case of singquandles. We show that the singquandle polynomial is an invariant of finite singquandles. We also construct a singular link invariant from the singquandle polynomial and show that this new singular link invariant generalizes the singquandle counting invariant. In particular, using the new polynomial invariant, we can distinguish singular links with the same singquandle counting invariant.
A handlebody-link is a disjoint union of embeddings of handlebodies in $S^3$ and an HL-homotopy is an equivalence relation on handlebody-links generated by self-crossing changes. The second author and Ryo Nikkuni classified the set of HL-homotopy classes of 2-component handlebody-links completely using the linking numbers for handlebody-links. In this paper, we construct a family of invariants for HL-homotopy classes of general handlebody-links, by using Milnors link-homotopy invariants. Moreover, we give a bijection between the set of HL-homotopy classes of almost trivial handlebody-links and tensor product space modulo some general linear actions, especially for 3- or more component handlebody-links. Through this bijection we construct comparable invariants of HL-homotopy classes.
Two links are link-homotopic if they are transformed into each other by a sequence of self-crossing changes and ambient isotopies. The link-homotopy classes of 4-component links were classified by Levine with enormous algebraic computations. We modify the results by using Habiros clasper theory. The new classification gives more symmetrical and schematic points of view to the link-homotopy classes of 4-component links. As applications, we give several new subsets of the link-homotopy classes of 4-component links which are classified by comparable invariants and give an algorithm which determines whether given two links are link-homotopic or not.