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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Alexander And Writhe Polynomials For Virtual Knots, Blake Mellor Jan 2016

Alexander And Writhe Polynomials For Virtual Knots, Blake Mellor

Mathematics Faculty Works

We give a new interpretation of the Alexander polynomial Δ0 for virtual knots due to Sawollek and Silver and Williams, and use it to show that, for any virtual knot, Δ0 determines the writhe polynomial of Cheng and Gao (equivalently, Kauffman's affine index polynomial). We also use it to define a second-order writhe polynomial, and give some applications.


Colorings, Determinants And Alexander Polynomials For Spatial Graphs, Terry Kong, Alec Lewald, Blake Mellor, Vadim Pigrish Jan 2016

Colorings, Determinants And Alexander Polynomials For Spatial Graphs, Terry Kong, Alec Lewald, Blake Mellor, Vadim Pigrish

Mathematics Faculty Works

A {\em balanced} spatial graph has an integer weight on each edge, so that the directed sum of the weights at each vertex is zero. We describe the Alexander module and polynomial for balanced spatial graphs (originally due to Kinoshita \cite{ki}), and examine their behavior under some common operations on the graph. We use the Alexander module to define the determinant and p-colorings of a balanced spatial graph, and provide examples. We show that the determinant of a spatial graph determines for which p the graph is p-colorable, and that a p-coloring of a graph corresponds to a representation of …


Involutory Quandles Of (2,2,R)-Montesinos Links, Jim Hoste, Patrick D. Shanahan Jan 2016

Involutory Quandles Of (2,2,R)-Montesinos Links, Jim Hoste, Patrick D. Shanahan

Mathematics Faculty Works

In this paper we show that Montesinos links of the form L(1/2, 1/2, p/q;e), which we call (2,2,r)-Montesinos links, have finite involutory quandles. This generalizes an observation of Winker regarding the (2, 2, q)-pretzel links. We also describe some properties of these quandles.


Links With Finite N-Quandles, Jim Hoste, Patrick D. Shanahan Jan 2016

Links With Finite N-Quandles, Jim Hoste, Patrick D. Shanahan

Mathematics Faculty Works

We prove a conjecture of Przytycki which asserts that the n-quandle of a link L in the 3-sphere is finite if and only if the fundamental group of the n-fold cyclic branched cover of the 3-sphere, branched over L, is finite.


Symmetries Of Embedded Complete Bipartite Graphs, Erica Flapan, Nicole Lehle, Blake Mellor, Matt Pittluck, Xan Vongsathorn Jan 2014

Symmetries Of Embedded Complete Bipartite Graphs, Erica Flapan, Nicole Lehle, Blake Mellor, Matt Pittluck, Xan Vongsathorn

Mathematics Faculty Works

We characterize which automorphisms of an arbitrary complete bipartite graph Kn,m can be induced by a homeomorphism of some embedding of the graph in S3.


Hom Quandles, Alissa S. Crans, Sam Nelson Jan 2014

Hom Quandles, Alissa S. Crans, Sam Nelson

Mathematics Faculty Works

If A is an abelian quandle and Q is a quandle, the hom set Hom(Q,A) of quandle homomorphisms from Q to A has a natural quandle structure. We exploit this fact to enhance the quandle counting invariant, providing an example of links with the same counting invariant values but distinguished by the hom quandle structure. We generalize the result to the case of biquandles, collect observations and results about abelian quandles and the hom quandle, and show that the category of abelian quandles is symmetric monoidal closed.


Torsion In One-Term Distributive Homology, Alissa S. Crans, Józef H. Przytycki, Krzysztof K. Putyra Jan 2013

Torsion In One-Term Distributive Homology, Alissa S. Crans, Józef H. Przytycki, Krzysztof K. Putyra

Mathematics Faculty Works

The one-term distributive homology was introduced by J.H.Przytycki as an atomic replacement of rack and quandle homology, which was first introduced and developed by R.Fenn, C.Rourke and B.Sanderson, and J.S.Carter, S.Kamada and M.Saito. This homology was initially suspected to be torsion-free, but we show in this paper that the one-term homology of a finite spindle can have torsion. We carefully analyze spindles of block decomposition of type (n,1) and introduce various techniques to compute their homology precisely. In addition, we show that any finite group can appear as the torsion subgroup of the first homology of some finite spindle. Finally, …


Twisted Alexander Polynomials Of 2-Bridge Knots, Jim Hoste, Patrick D. Shanahan Jan 2013

Twisted Alexander Polynomials Of 2-Bridge Knots, Jim Hoste, Patrick D. Shanahan

Mathematics Faculty Works

We investigate the twisted Alexander polynomial of a 2-bridge knot associated to a Fox coloring. For several families of 2-bridge knots, including but not limited to, torus knots and genus-one knots, we derive formulae for these twisted Alexander polynomials. We use these formulae to confirm a conjecture of Hirasawa and Murasugi for these knots.


Polynomial Knot And Link Invariants From The Virtual Biquandle, Alissa S. Crans, Allison Henrich, Sam Nelson Jan 2013

Polynomial Knot And Link Invariants From The Virtual Biquandle, Alissa S. Crans, Allison Henrich, Sam Nelson

Mathematics Faculty Works

The Alexander biquandle of a virtual knot or link is a module over a 2-variable Laurent polynomial ring which is an invariant of virtual knots and links. The elementary ideals of this module are then invariants of virtual isotopy which determine both the generalized Alexander polynomial (also known as the Sawollek polynomial) for virtual knots and the classical Alexander polynomial for classical knots. For a fixed monomial ordering <, the Gr\"obner bases for these ideals are computable, comparable invariants which fully determine the elementary ideals and which generalize and unify the classical and generalized Alexander polynomials. We provide examples to illustrate the usefulness of these invariants and propose questions for future work.


Upper Bounds In The Ohtsuki-Riley-Sakuma Partial Order On 2-Bridge Knots, Scott M. Garrabrant, Jim Hoste, Patrick D. Shanahan Jan 2012

Upper Bounds In The Ohtsuki-Riley-Sakuma Partial Order On 2-Bridge Knots, Scott M. Garrabrant, Jim Hoste, Patrick D. Shanahan

Mathematics Faculty Works

In this paper we use continued fractions to study a partial order on the set of 2-bridge knots derived from the work of Ohtsuki, Riley, and Sakuma. We establish necessary and sufficient conditions for any set of 2-bridge knots to have an upper bound with respect to the partial order. Moreover, given any 2-bridge knot K we characterize all other 2-bridge knots J such that {K, J} has an upper bound. As an application we answer a question of Suzuki, showing that there is no upper bound for the set consisting of the trefoil and figure-eight knots.


Spatial Graphs With Local Knots, Erica Flapan, Blake Mellor, Ramin Naimi Jan 2012

Spatial Graphs With Local Knots, Erica Flapan, Blake Mellor, Ramin Naimi

Mathematics Faculty Works

It is shown that for any locally knotted edge of a 3-connected graph in S3, there is a ball that contains all of the local knots of that edge and is unique up to an isotopy setwise fixing the graph. This result is applied to the study of topological symmetry groups of graphs embedded in S3.


On Levi-Civita’S Alternating Symbol, Schouten’S Alternating Unit Tensors, Cpt, And Quantization, Evert Jan Post, Stan Sholar, Hooman Rahimizadeh, Michael Berg Jan 2012

On Levi-Civita’S Alternating Symbol, Schouten’S Alternating Unit Tensors, Cpt, And Quantization, Evert Jan Post, Stan Sholar, Hooman Rahimizadeh, Michael Berg

Mathematics Faculty Works

The purpose of the present article is to demonstrate that by adopting a unifying differential geometric perspective on certain themes in physics one reaps remarkable new dividends in both microscopic and macroscopic domains. By replacing algebraic objects by tensor-transforming objects and introducing methods from the theory of differentiable manifolds at a very fundamental level we obtain a Kottler-Cartan metric-independent general invariance of the Maxwell field, which in turn makes for a global quantum superstructure for Gauss-Amp`ere and Aharonov-Bohm “quantum integrals.” Beyond this, our approach shows that postulating a Riemannian metric at the quantum level is an unnecessary concept and our …


Complete Graphs Whose Topological Symmetry Groups Are Polyhedral, Eric Flapan, Blake Mellor, Ramin Naimi Jan 2011

Complete Graphs Whose Topological Symmetry Groups Are Polyhedral, Eric Flapan, Blake Mellor, Ramin Naimi

Mathematics Faculty Works

We determine for which m the complete graph Km has an embedding in S3 whose topological symmetry group is isomorphic to one of the polyhedral groups A4, A5 or S4.


Derived Categories And The Analytic Approach To General Reciprocity Laws. Part Iii, Michael Berg Jan 2010

Derived Categories And The Analytic Approach To General Reciprocity Laws. Part Iii, Michael Berg

Mathematics Faculty Works

Building on the scaffolding constructed in the first two articles in this series, we now proceed to the geometric phase of our sheaf (-complex) theoretic quasidualization of Kubota's formalism for n-Hilbert reciprocity. Employing recent work by Bridgeland on stability conditions, we extend our yoga of t-structures situated above diagrams of specifically designed derived categories to arrangements of metric spaces or complex manifolds. This prepares the way for proving n-Hilbert reciprocity by means of singularity analysis.


Intrinsic Linking And Knotting Are Arbitrarily Complex, Erica Flapan, Blake Mellor, Ramin Naimi Jan 2008

Intrinsic Linking And Knotting Are Arbitrarily Complex, Erica Flapan, Blake Mellor, Ramin Naimi

Mathematics Faculty Works

We show that, given any n and α, every embedding of any sufficiently large complete graph in R3 contains an oriented link with components Q1, ..., Qn such that for every i≠j, $|\lk(Q_i,Q_j)|\geq\alpha$ and |a2(Qi)|≥α, where a2(Qi) denotes the second coefficient of the Conway polynomial of Qi.


Weight Systems For Milnor Invariants, Blake Mellor Jan 2008

Weight Systems For Milnor Invariants, Blake Mellor

Mathematics Faculty Works

We use Polyak's skein relation to give a new proof that Milnor's string link homotopy invariants are finite type invariants, and to develop a recursive relation for their associated weight systems. We show that the obstruction to the triviality of these weight systems is the presence of a certain kind of spanning tree in the intersection graph of a chord diagram.


Musical Actions Of Dihedral Groups, Alissa S. Crans, Thomas M. Fiore, Ramon Satyendra Jan 2008

Musical Actions Of Dihedral Groups, Alissa S. Crans, Thomas M. Fiore, Ramon Satyendra

Mathematics Faculty Works

The sequence of pitches which form a musical melody can be transposed or inverted. Since the 1970s, music theorists have modeled musical transposition and inversion in terms of an action of the dihedral group of order 24. More recently music theorists have found an intriguing second way that the dihedral group of order 24 acts on the set of major and minor chords. We illustrate both geometrically and algebraically how these two actions are {\it dual}. Both actions and their duality have been used to analyze works of music as diverse as Hindemith and the Beatles.


Derived Categories And The Analytic Approach To General Reciprocity Laws. Part Ii, Michael Berg Jan 2007

Derived Categories And The Analytic Approach To General Reciprocity Laws. Part Ii, Michael Berg

Mathematics Faculty Works

Building on the topological foundations constructed in Part I, we now go on to address the homological algebra preparatory to the projected final arithmetical phase of our attack on the analytic proof of general reciprocity for a number field. In the present work, we develop two algebraic frameworks corresponding to two interpretations of Kubota's n-Hilbert reciprocity formalism, presented in a quasi-dualized topological form in Part I, delineating two sheaf-theoretic routes toward resolving the aforementioned (open) problem. The first approach centers on factoring sheaf morphisms eventually to yield a splitting homomorphism for Kubota's n-fold cover of the adelized special linear group …


Virtual Spatial Graphs, Thomas Fleming, Blake Mellor Jan 2007

Virtual Spatial Graphs, Thomas Fleming, Blake Mellor

Mathematics Faculty Works

Two natural generalizations of knot theory are t he study of spatially embedded graphs, and Kauffman's theory of virtual knots. In this paper we combine these approaches to begin the study of virtual spat ial graphs.


Exotic Statistics For Strings In 4d Bf Theory, John C. Baez, Derek K. Wise, Alissa S. Crans Jan 2007

Exotic Statistics For Strings In 4d Bf Theory, John C. Baez, Derek K. Wise, Alissa S. Crans

Mathematics Faculty Works

After a review of exotic statistics for point particles in 3d BF theory, and especially 3d quantum gravity, we show that string-like defects in 4d BF theory obey exotic statistics governed by the 'loop braid group'. This group has a set of generators that switch two strings just as one would normally switch point particles, but also a set of generators that switch two strings by passing one through the other. The first set generates a copy of the symmetric group, while the second generates a copy of the braid group. Thanks to recent work of Xiao-Song Lin, we can …


Intrinsic Linking And Knotting In Virtual Spatial Graphs, Thomas Fleming, Blake Mellor Jan 2007

Intrinsic Linking And Knotting In Virtual Spatial Graphs, Thomas Fleming, Blake Mellor

Mathematics Faculty Works

We introduce a notion of intrinsic linking and knotting for virtual spatial graphs. Our theory gives two filtrations of the set of all graphs, allowing us to measure, in a sense, how intrinsically linked or knotted a graph is; we show that these filtrations are descending and nonterminating. We also provide several examples of intrinsically virtually linked and knotted graphs. As a byproduct, we introduce the virtual unknotting number of a knot, and show that any knot with nontrivial Jones polynomial has virtual unknotting number at least 2.


Boundary Slopes Of 2-Bridge Links Determine The Crossing Number, Jim Hoste, Patrick D. Shanahan Jan 2007

Boundary Slopes Of 2-Bridge Links Determine The Crossing Number, Jim Hoste, Patrick D. Shanahan

Mathematics Faculty Works

A diagonal surface in a link exterior M is a properly embedded, incompressible, boundary incompressible surface which furthermore has the same number of boundary components and the same slope on each component of the boundary of M. We derive a formula for the boundary slope of a diagonal surface in the exterior of a 2-bridge link which is analogous to the formula for the boundary slope of a 2-bridge knot found by Hatcher and Thurston. Using this formula we show that the diameter of a 2-bridge link, that is, the difference between the smallest and largest finite slopes of …


Intrinsic Linking And Knotting Of Graphs In Arbitrary 3–Manifolds, Erica Flapan, Hugh Howards, Don Lawrence, Blake Mellor Jan 2006

Intrinsic Linking And Knotting Of Graphs In Arbitrary 3–Manifolds, Erica Flapan, Hugh Howards, Don Lawrence, Blake Mellor

Mathematics Faculty Works

We prove that a graph is intrinsically linked in an arbitrary 3–manifold MM if and only if it is intrinsically linked in S3. Also, assuming the Poincaré Conjecture, we prove that a graph is intrinsically knotted in M if and only if it is intrinsically knotted in S3.


Intersection Graphs For String Links, Blake Mellor Jan 2006

Intersection Graphs For String Links, Blake Mellor

Mathematics Faculty Works

We extend the notion of intersection graphs for knots in the theory of finite type invariants to string links. We use our definition to develop weight systems for string links via the adjacency matrix of the intersection graph, and show that these weight systems are related to the weight systems induced by the Conway and Homfly polynomials.


Tree Diagrams For String Links, Blake Mellor Jan 2006

Tree Diagrams For String Links, Blake Mellor

Mathematics Faculty Works

In previous work, the author defined the intersection graph of a chord diagram associated with string links (as in the theory of finite type invariants). In this paper, we classify the trees which can be obtained as intersection graphs of string link diagrams.


Chord Diagrams And Gauss Codes For Graphs, Thomas Fleming, Blake Mellor Jan 2006

Chord Diagrams And Gauss Codes For Graphs, Thomas Fleming, Blake Mellor

Mathematics Faculty Works

Chord diagrams on circles and their intersection graphs (also known as circle graphs) have been intensively studied, and have many applications to the study of knots and knot invariants, among others. However, chord diagrams on more general graphs have not been studied, and are potentially equally valuable in the study of spatial graphs. We will define chord diagrams for planar embeddings of planar graphs and their intersection graphs, and prove some basic results. Then, as an application, we will introduce Gauss codes for immersions of graphs in the plane and give algorithms to determine whether a particular crossing sequence is …


Linked Exact Triples Of Triangulated Categories And A Calculus Of T-Structures, Michael Berg Jan 2006

Linked Exact Triples Of Triangulated Categories And A Calculus Of T-Structures, Michael Berg

Mathematics Faculty Works

We introduce a new formalism of exact triples of triangulated categories arranged in certain types of diagrams. We prove that these arrangements are well-behaved relative to the process of gluing and ungluing t-structures defined on the indicated categories and we connect our con. structs to· a problem (from number theory) involving derived categories. We also briefly address a possible connection with a result of R. Thomason.


Derived Categories And The Analytic Approach To General Reciprocity Laws. Part I, Michael Berg Jan 2005

Derived Categories And The Analytic Approach To General Reciprocity Laws. Part I, Michael Berg

Mathematics Faculty Works

We reformulate Hecke's open problem of 1923, regarding the Fourier-analytic proof of higher reciprocity laws, as a theorem about morphisms involving stratified topological spaces. We achieve this by placing Kubota's formulations of n-Hilbert reciprocity in a new topological context, suited to the introduction of derived categories of sheaf complexes. Subsequently, we begin to investigate conditions on associated sheaves and a derived category of sheaf complexes specifically designed for an attack on Hecke's eighty-year-old challenge.


Commensurability Classes Of Twist Knots, Jim Hoste, Patrick D. Shanahan Jan 2005

Commensurability Classes Of Twist Knots, Jim Hoste, Patrick D. Shanahan

Mathematics Faculty Works

In this paper we prove that if MK is the complement of a non-fibered twist knot K in S3, then MK is not commensurable to a fibered knot complement in a Z/2Z-homology sphere. To prove this result we derive a recursive description of the character variety of twist knots and then prove that a commensurability criterion developed by D. Calegari and N. Dunfield is satisfied for these varieties. In addition, we partially extend our results to a second infinite family of 2-bridge knots.


From Loop Groups To 2-Groups, John C. Baez, Danny Stevenson, Alissa S. Crans, Urs Schreiber Jan 2005

From Loop Groups To 2-Groups, John C. Baez, Danny Stevenson, Alissa S. Crans, Urs Schreiber

Mathematics Faculty Works

We describe an interesting relation between Lie 2-algebras, the Kac-Moody central extensions of loop groups, and the group String(n). A Lie 2-algebra is a categorified version of a Lie algebra where the Jacobi identity holds up to a natural isomorphism called the "Jacobiator". Similarly, a Lie 2-group is a categorified version of a Lie group. If G is a simply-connected compact simple Lie group, there is a 1-parameter family of Lie 2-algebras g_k each having Lie(G) as its Lie algebra of objects, but with a Jacobiator built from the canonical 3-form on G. There appears to be no Lie 2-group …