Long line knots (Q1881022)

To clarify the terminology let us write: For an ordinal \(\alpha, W(\alpha)\) denotes the set of ordinals strictly smaller than \(\alpha\). The (closed) long ray \(R\) is the set \(W(\omega_1)\times [0,1)\), equipped with the lexicographic order and the order topology. The long line \(L\) is the union of two copies of \(R\) glued at (0,0), with the reverse order on one copy. The embeddings of \(L\) into \(L^n\) and \(R\) into \(R^n\), respectively, and their classifications up to ambient isotopy, shortly knots, are treated. In order to describe the classification the authors introduce a numerical invariant called the ``direction'', and in the case of \(f: R \to R^n\), the direction is a vector whose \(i\)-th component is 1 if \(\pi_i \circ f(R)\) is cofinal and 0 if it is bounded in \(R\), where \(\pi_i\) denotes \(i\)-th projection. With appropriate modifications one has a definition of direction in other cases. Two sample results: There are 3 classes of embeddings of \(R\) into \(R^2\); If \( n \geq 4\), then there are \((2^n - 1)\) ambient isotopy classes of differentiable embeddings of \(R\) into \(R^n\). As a final result, it is shown that the classification of differentiable embeddings of \(L\) into \(L^3\) with a given direction is equivalent to the classification of oriented differentiable embeddings of \(S^1\) into \(S^3\).