Combinatorial knot theory and the Jones polynomial
Abstract
This paper is an introduction to combinatorial knot theory via state summation models for the Jones polynomial and its generalizations. It is also a story about the developments that ensued in relation to the discovery of the Jones polynomial and a remembrance of Vaughan Jones and his mathematics.
- Knot
- link
- Jones polynomial
- bracket polynomial
- Homflypt polynomial
- Kauffman polynomial
- state sum
- partition function
- functional integral
- quantum field theory
- topological quantum field theory
- tensor network
- Yang–Baxter equation
- Temperley–Lieb algebra
- quantum link invariant
- Hopf algebra
- quantum group
- Vassiliev invariant
- Jacobi identity
- virtual knot theory
- arrow polynomial
- surface
- cobordism
- category
- Khovanov category
- mapping cone
- homotopy
- chain homotopy