Knot polynomials and generalized mutation (Q1099443)

The motivation for this work was to construct a nontrivial knot having trivial Jones polynomial. That open problem has not yielded to them yet, but the methods are still useful in furthering our understanding of the new knot polynomials. The subject of the paper is a generalization of Conway's mutation of knots and links. Instead of flipping a 2-strand tangle, one flips a many-string tangle to produce a generalized mutant of a given link. In the presence of rotational symmetry in the tangle, the authors call the result a ``rotant''. It is then shown that if a rotant is sufficiently simple, then its Jones polynomial agrees with that of the original link. Similar results are obtained regarding the Alexander polynomial, the new several-variable polynomials, and signature of links. Applications are also given to polynomials of satellites and symmetric knots.