Crossing numbers of random two-bridge knots (Q1663861)

The random model in the present work is a billiard trajectory with randomly chosen crossings, as introduced in [\textit{M. Cohen} and \textit{S. R. Krishnan}, Topology Appl. 194, 4--21 (2015; Zbl 1328.57005)]. Denote by \(T(a,b)\) the planar trajectory of a billiard ball in \([0, a]\times [0, b]\) fired at slope one from the lower left corner, where \(a\) and \(b\) are coprime integers. Billiard table diagrams are obtained from these curves by deciding on the crossing information and connecting the two ends outside. Much of the literature on random knots focuses on the probability of obtaining a given knot. The authors progress to study the distribution of the random variable \(c(K_n)\), the crossing number of a random knot. It is natural to ask how the number of crossings \(n\) in a random billiard table diagram \(D_n\) relates to the minimal number of crossings in any diagram of the resulting knot \(K_n\). The main result of the paper is the following one: The probability \(P(c(K_n) = c)\) that \(c\in \{3,\ldots , n\}\) is the crossing number of a random two-bridge knot \(K_n\) asymptotically almost surely grows linearly in \(n\). Hence, a random billiard table knot diagram usually cannot be simplified in terms of crossings by more than a multiplicative constant. The authors also explicitly find the asymptotic ratio of this linear growth. Corollary. The crossing number of a random knot \(K_n\) satisfies \({{c(K_n)}\over{n}}\to \beta\) in probability, where \(\beta = {{\sqrt{5} -1}\over{4}}\). The rest of this paper is structured as follows. In Section 2 the authors provide some background on billiard table diagrams of two-bridge knots and discuss the key ideas in the derivation of the closed formula for \(P(c(K_n) = c)\). Section 3 presents the main counting arguments. The results on the distribution of knots and their crossing numbers are then in Sections 4 and 5.