Knot and braid invariants from contact homology. I (Q2388858): Difference between revisions

New knot and braid conjugacy class invariants are introduced in this interesting paper. The invariants are the homology groups of certain differential graded algebras. Particular attention is paid to the 0-dimensional homology group which is relatively easy to compute and can be related to classical knot invariants. For example, for 2-bridge knots it depends only on the Alexander Polynomial evaluated at \(-1\). Many pairs of knots, indistinguishable by extant polynomials (Alexander, Jones, HOMFLY, Kaufmann) or signature, or Khovanov invariant or Ozsváth-Szabó invariant are distinguished by these 0-dimensional homology groups. The invariants derive from certain representations of the braid group in the automorphism group of a free tensor algebra. There are strong connections of the invariants to the relative contact homology of certain Legendrian tori in 5-dimensional contact manifolds. For Part II see [\textit{L. Ng}, Geom. Topol. 9, 1603--1637 (2005; Zbl 1112.57001)].