Journal of Knot Theory and Its Ramifications

We study the problem of deciding whether or not the image of an irreducible representation of the braid group of degree ≤ 5 has finite image if we are only given the eigenvalues of a generator. We provide a partial algorithm that determines when the images are finite or infinite in all but finitely many cases, and use these results to study examples coming from quantum groups. Our technique uses two classification theorems and the computational group theory package GAP.

The probability that a random walk or polygon in the 3-space or in the simple cubic lattice contains a knot goes to one at the length goes to infinity. Here, we prove that this is also true for slipknots consisting of unknotted portions, called the slipknot, that contain a smaller knotted portion, called the ephemeral knot. As is the case with knots, we prove that any topological knot type occurs as the ephemeral knotted portion of a slipknot.

In this paper we examine the relationship between various types of positivity for knots and the concordance invariant τ discovered by Ozsváth and Szabó and independently by Rasmussen. The main result shows that, for fibered knots, τ characterizes strong quasipositivity. This is quantified by the statement that for K fibered, τ(K) = g(K) if and only if K is strongly quasipositive. A corollary is that any knot admitting a lens space surgery or, more generally, an L-space surgery, is strongly quasipositive. In addition, we survey existing results regarding τ and forms of positivity and highlight several consequences concerning the types of knots which are (strongly) (quasi) positive.

We describe the restriction of the Dehornoy ordering of braids to the dual braid monoids introduced by Birman, Ko and Lee: we give an inductive characterization of the ordering of the dual braid monoids and compute the corresponding ordinal type. The proof consists in introducing a new ordering on the dual braid monoid using the rotating normal form of arXiv:math.GR/0811.3902, and then proving that this new ordering coincides with the standard ordering of braids.

In this paper, we investigate twist sequences for Kauffman finite-type invariants and Goussarov–Polyak–Viro finite-type invariants. It is shown that one obtains a Kauffman or GPV type of degree ≤ n if and only if an invariant is a polynomial of degree ≤ n on every twist lattice of the right form. The main result of this paper is an application of this technique to the coefficients of the Jones–Kauffman polynomial. It is shown that the Kauffman finite-type invariants obtained from these coefficients are not GPV finite-type invariants of any degree by explicitly showing they can never be polynomials. This generalizes a result of Kauffman [8], where it is known for degree k = 2.

If a hyperbolic 3-manifold M admits a reducible and a finite Dehn filling, the distance between the filling slopes is known to be 1. This has been proved recently by Boyer, Gordon and Zhang. The first example of a manifold with two such fillings was given by Boyer and Zhang. In this paper, we give examples of hyperbolic manifolds admitting a reducible Dehn filling and a finite Dehn filling of every type: cyclic, dihedral, tetrahedral, octahedral and icosahedral.

We use curvature techniques from geometric group theory to produce examples of virtual knot groups that are not classical knot groups.

We prove that every spatial embedding of the complete graph K₈ contains at least 3 knotted Hamiltonian cycles, and that every spatial embedding of K_n contains at least 3(n - 1)(n - 2) ⋯ 8 knotted Hamiltonian cycles, for n > 8.

We introduce a polynomial invariant of virtual links that is non-trivial for many virtuals, but is trivial on classical links. Also this polynomial is sometimes useful to find the virtual crossing number of virtual knots. We give various properties of this polynomial and examples.