On filamentations and virtual knots (Q1409760)

Virtual knots may be regarded as equivalence classes of Gauss diagrams under appropriate versions of the Reidemeister moves. The authors begin by introducing a new type of Gauss diagram, called an oriented chord diagram, which corresponds to a flat virtual link. The notion of a filamentation on an oriented chord diagram is defined. The authors then show that existence of a filamentation is an invariant of knot type. In particular, since every classical knot admits a filamentation, any Gauss diagram which does not admit a filamentation represents a non-classical (and hence non-trivial) virtual knot. An infinite family of non-trivial virtual knots is then defined, and these are shown to have trivial Jones polynomials and trivial quandles (and hence trivial fundamental group), but are distinguished by the Alexander biquandle.