Invariants of Boundary Link Cobordism

To a Seifert matrix of a knot K one can associate a matrix w(K) with entries in the rational function field, Q(t). The Murasugi, Milnor, and Levine-Tristram knot signatures, all of which provide bounds on the 4-genus of a knot, are determined by w(K). More generally, the minimal rank of a representative of the class represented by w(K) in the Witt group of hermitian forms over Q(t) provides a lower bound for the 4-genus of K. Here we describe an easily computed new bound on t...

The sequence 2,5,15,51,187,... with the form $(2^n+1)(2^{n-1}+1)/3$ has two interpretations in terms of the density of a language with four letters and the cardinality of the quotient of $\ZZ_2^n\times \ZZ_2^n$ under the action of the special linear group $\op{SL}(2,\ZZ)$. The last interpretation follows the rank of the fundamental group of the $\ZZ_2^n$-cobordism category in dimension 1+1. This article presents how to pass from one side to another between these two approache...

A Gauss diagram is a simple, combinatorial way to present a knot. It is known that any Vassiliev invariant may be obtained from a Gauss diagram formula that involves counting (with signs and multiplicities) subdiagrams of certain combinatorial types. These formulas generalize the calculation of a linking number by counting signs of crossings in a link diagram. Until recently, explicit formulas of this type were known only for few invariants of low degrees. In this paper we pr...

In his pioneering work from 1969, Jerry Levine introduced a complete set of invariants of algebraic concordance of knots. The evaluation of these invariants requires a factorization of the Alexander polynomial of the knot, and is therefore in practice often hard to realize. We thus propose the study of an alternative set of invariants of algebraic concordance - the rational Witt classes of knots. Though these are rather weaker invariants than those defined by Levine, they hav...

We show how the classical notions of cohomology with local coefficients, CW-complex, covering space, homeomorphism equivalence, simple homotopy equivalence, tubular neighbourhood, and spinning can be encoded on a computer and used to calculate ambient isotopy invariants of continuous embeddings $N\hookrightarrow M$ of one topological manifold into another. More specifically, we describe an algorithm for computing the homology $H_n(X,A)$ and cohomology $H^n(X,A)$ of a finite c...

We develop new algebraic methods refining the Witt group of linking forms and Ranicki's torsion algebraic L-groups into double Witt groups and double L-groups. At each prime ideal of the underlying ring, our double Witt groups capture infinitely many more integral signatures of the linking form than the single Witt groups. The double L-groups are an algebraic theory of `double cobordism', refining L-theory analogously. We exhibit an exact sequence relating the double L-groups...

This paper describes a method for the automatic evaluation of the Links-Gould two-variable polynomial link invariant (LG) for any link, given only a braid presentation. This method is currently feasible for the evaluation of LG for links for which we have a braid presentation of string index at most 5. Data are presented for the invariant, for all prime knots of up to 10 crossings and various other links. LG distinguishes between these links, and also detects the chirality of...

The purpose of this article is to show that the bivariant algebraic $A$-cobordism groups considered previously by the author are independent of the chosen base ring $A$. This result is proven by analyzing the bivariant ideal generated by the so called snc relations, and, while the alternative characterization we obtain for this ideal is interesting by itself because of its simplicity, perhaps more importantly it allows us to easily extend the definition of bivariant algebraic...

It is known that the first two-variable Links--Gould quantum link invariant $LG\equiv LG^{2,1}$ is more powerful than the HOMFLYPT and Kauffman polynomials, in that it distinguishes all prime knots (including reflections) of up to 10 crossings. Here we report investigations which greatly expand the set of evaluations of $LG$ for prime knots. Through them, we show that the invariant is complete, modulo mutation, for all prime knots (including reflections) of up to 11 crossings...

We observe that most known results of the form "v is not a finite-type invariant" follow from two basic theorems. Among those invariants which are not of finite type, we discuss examples which are "ft-independent" and examples which are not. We introduce (n,q)-finite invariants, which are generalizations of finite-type invariants based on Fox's (n,q) congruence classes of knots.