No Arabic abstract
We consider knotted annuli in 4-space, called 2-string-links, which are knotted surfaces in codimension two that are naturally related, via closure operations, to both 2-links and 2-torus links. We classify 2-string-links up to link-homotopy by means of a 4-dimensional version of Milnor invariants. The key to our proof is that any 2-string link is link-homotopic to a ribbon one; this allows to use the homotopy classification obtained in the ribbon case by P. Bellingeri and the authors. Along the way, we give a Roseman-type result for immersed surfaces in 4-space. We also discuss the case of ribbon k-string links, for $kgeq 3$.
Two string links are equivalent up to $2n$-moves and link-homotopy if and only if their all Milnor link-homotopy invariants are congruent modulo $n$. Moreover, the set of the equivalence classes forms a finite group generated by elements of order $n$. The classification induces that if two string links are equivalent up to $2n$-moves for every $n>0$, then they are link-homotopic.
A neighborhood homotopy is an equivalence relation on spatial graphs which is generated by crossing changes on the same component and neighborhood equivalence. We give a complete classification of all 2-component spatial graphs up to neighborhood homotopy by the elementary divisor of a linking matrix with respect to the first homology group of each of the connected components. This also leads a kind of homotopy classification of 2-component handlebody-links.
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.
We give a new and detailed description of the structure of cut loci, with direct applications to the singular sets of some Hamilton-Jacobi equations. These sets may be non-triangulable, but a local description at all points except for a set of Hausdorff dimension $n-2$ is well known. We go further in this direction by giving a clasification of all points up to a set of Hausdorff dimension $n-3$.