Unoriented Khovanov homology (Q2075841)

The paper under review contains two main results. The first result is the removal of the dependence on orientation for Khovanov homology. Specifically, the authors present a new normalization of Khovanov homology that yields an invariant of links (without a choice of orientation). This normalization may also be applied to an extension of Khovanov homology to virtual links due to \textit{V. O. Manturov} [J. Knot Theory Ramifications 16, No. 3, 345--377 (2007; Zbl 1117.57013)] (the version used in the paper is its reformulation due to Dye-Kaestner-Kauffman [\textit{H. A. Dye} et al., ibid. 26, No. 3, Article ID 1741001, 57 p. (2017; Zbl 1380.57012)]). The theory obtained via this normalization is the eponymous \textit{unoriented Khovanov homology}, the graded Euler characteristic of which is a Jones-like polynomial invariant. Secondly, the authors introduce a construction that decomposes a virtual link into a set of sublinks, known as the \textit{core and mantle decomposition}. Unlike those of classical links, the pairwise linking numbers of virtual links may be odd; the core and mantle decomposition uses this phenomenon in an essential way. At first the Jones-like polynomials described above do not possess all of the features of the classical Jones polynomial. The authors use the core and mantle decomposition to recover some of these features. The extension of Khovanov homology to virtual links used in the paper requires a suite of auxiliary information in order to be defined. The paper under review contains a description of how this auxillary information can be described succintly, using the notion of an \textit{arc-labeled diagram}. The authors describe how this method of presenting the auxilary structure naturally lends itself to computer implementation. The paper concludes with a description of how the new normalization may also be used to define an unoriented Lee homology for virtual links.