A lower bound for the number of Reidemeister moves of type III

This book is a detailed introduction to the theory of finite type (Vassiliev) knot invariants, with a stress on its combinatorial aspects. It is intended to serve both as a textbook for readers with no or little background in this area, and as a guide to some of the more advanced material. Our aim is to lead the reader to understanding by means of pictures and calculations, and for this reason we often prefer to convey the idea of the proof on an instructive example rather th...

As a generalization of a classical result on the Alexander polynomial for fibered knots, we show in this paper that the Reidemeister torsion associated to a certain representation detects fiberedness of knots in the three sphere.

The minimal coloring number of a $\mathbb{Z}$-colorable link is the minimal number of colors for non-trivial $\mathbb{Z}$-colorings on diagrams of the link. In this paper, we show that the minimal coloring number of any non-splittable $\mathbb{Z}$-colorable links is four. As an example, we consider the link obtained by replacing each component of the given link with several parallel strands, which we call a parallel of a link. We show that an even parallel of a link is $\math...

We determine the minimal number of colors for non-trivial $\mathbb{Z}$-colorings on the standard minimal diagrams of $\mathbb{Z}$-colorable torus links. Also included are complete classifications of such $\mathbb{Z}$-colorings and of such $\mathbb{Z}$-colorings by only four colors, which are shown by using rack colorings on link diagrams.

In this paper we present a systematic method to generate prime knot and prime link minimal triple-point projections, and then classify all classical prime knots and prime links with triple-crossing number at most four. We also extend the table of known knots and links with triple-crossing number equal to five. By introducing a new type of diagrammatic move, we reduce the number of generating moves on triple-crossing diagrams, and derive a minimal generating set of moves conne...

In earlier papers we introduced a representation of isotopy classes of compact surfaces embedded in the three-sphere by so called rectangular diagrams. The formalism proved useful for comparing Legendrian knots. The aim of this paper is to prove a Reidemeister type theorem for rectangular diagrams of surfaces.

We propose some natural generalizations of Reidemeister moves that do not increase the number of crossings in the generated diagrams. Experimentations make us conjecture that this class of monotonic moves is complete for computing canonical forms and then deciding isotopy.

Let $K\subset S^3$ be a Fox $p$-colored knot and assume $K$ bounds a locally flat surface $S\subset B^4$ over which the given $p$-coloring extends. This coloring of $S$ induces a dihedral branched cover $X\to S^4$. Its branching set is a closed surface embedded in $S^4$ locally flatly away from one singularity whose link is $K$. When $S$ is homotopy ribbon and $X$ a definite four-manifold, a condition relating the signature of $X$ and the Murasugi signature of $K$ guarantees ...

The warping sum $e(K)$ of a knot $K$ is the minimal value of the sum of the warping degrees of a minimal diagram of $K$ with both orientations. In this paper, knots $K$ with $e(K) \le 3$ are characterized, and some knots $K$ with $e(K)=4$ are given.

In this paper we look for closed expressions to calculate the number of colourings of prime knots for given linear Alexander quandles. For this purpose the colouring matrices are simplified to a triangular form, when possible. The operations used to perform this triangularization preserve the property that the entries in each row add up to zero, thereby simplifying the solution of the equations giving the number of colourings. When the colouring matrices (of prime knots up to...