Khovanov homology for alternating tangles
Abstract
We describe a "concentration on the diagonal" condition on the Khovanov complex of tangles, show that this condition is satisfied by the Khovanov complex of the single crossing tangles 
and 
, and prove that it is preserved by alternating planar algebra compositions. Hence, this condition is satisfied by the Khovanov complex of all alternating tangles. Finally, in the case of 0-tangles, meaning links, our condition is equivalent to a well-known result [E. S. Lee, The support of the Khovanov's invariants for alternating links, preprint (2002), arXiv:math.GT/0201105v1.] which states that the Khovanov homology of a non-split alternating link is supported on two diagonals. Thus our condition is a generalization of Lee's theorem to the case of tangles.
