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Full-Text Articles in Mathematics

Hom Quandles, Alissa S. Crans, Sam Nelson Dec 2016

Hom Quandles, Alissa S. Crans, Sam Nelson

Alissa Crans

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.


Musical Actions Of Dihedral Groups, Alissa S. Crans, Thomas M. Fiore, Ramon Satyendra Dec 2016

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

Alissa Crans

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.


From Loop Groups To 2-Groups, John C. Baez, Danny Stevenson, Alissa S. Crans, Urs Schreiber Dec 2016

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

Alissa Crans

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 …


Torsion In One-Term Distributive Homology, Alissa S. Crans, Józef H. Przytycki, Krzysztof K. Putyra Dec 2016

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

Alissa Crans

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, …


Polynomial Knot And Link Invariants From The Virtual Biquandle, Alissa S. Crans, Allison Henrich, Sam Nelson Dec 2016

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

Alissa Crans

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 …


Exotic Statistics For Strings In 4d Bf Theory, John C. Baez, Derek K. Wise, Alissa S. Crans Dec 2016

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

Alissa Crans

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 …