Triviality and splittability of special almost alternating links via canonical Seifert surfaces (Q1971368)

A knot or link is almost alternating if it is not alternating and it admits a diagram \(D\) which can be made into an alternating diagram by changing one crossing. This specific crossing is called the dealternator. In this article the author gives a sufficient condition for almost alternating diagrams to represent a non-trivial knot or a non-splittable link. Assume that the knot or link has an orientation and that \(F\) is a Seifert surface obtained by applying Seifert's algorithm to the diagram. Define a graph \(G(D)\) as follows. The vertices correspond to the disks of \(F\) and the edges correspond to the half-twisted bands in \(F\). The edge corresponding to the dealternator will also be called a dealternator. If \(G(D)\) has no loop consisting of the dealternator and one additional edge then the diagram represents a nontrivial knot or a non-splittable link. In the remainder of the article it is determined which special almost alternating diagrams represent a non-trivial knot or non-splittable link.