A refinement of the Conway-Gordon theorems (Q1032921): Difference between revisions

\textit{J. H. Conway} and \textit{C. McA. Gordon} [J. Graph Theory 7, 445--453 (1983; Zbl 0524.05028)] proved that in every embedding of \(K_6\) in \(\mathbb{R}^3\), the sum of the linking numbers of every pair of disjoint 3-cycles is congruent to 1 modulo 2; and that in every embedding of \(K_7\) in \(\mathbb{R}^3\), the sum of the Arf invariants of every 7-cycle is congruent to 1 modulo 2. This paper contains integral lifts of these two theorems. Given an embedding of \(K_6\) or \(K_7\), the author extends Conway and Gordon's results by expressing the sum of the squares of the linking numbers of pairs of cycles in the spatial graph in terms of the second coefficients of the Conway polynomials of cycles in the spatial graph. Conway and Gordon's results can be recovered as the modulo 2 reduction of these expressions. The author also refines a result of A. F. Brown [unpublished] and \textit{J. L. Ramírez Alfonsín} [Discrete Comput. Geom. 22, No.~1, 149--158 (1999; Zbl 0931.05061)] which states that any rectalinear spatial embedding of \(K_7\) contains a trefoil knot.