The minimum crossing of 3-bridge links (Q2266481)

Any knot or link in \(S^ 3\) has an n-bridge projection for some \(n\geq 1\). This paper is concerned with the minimum number of crossing points among all 3-bridge projections of a knot. In a 2-bridge projection, for example, a trefoil knot K has 4 crossings, but K has only 3 crossings in some 3-bridge projection. Given an n-bridge projection of a link L, we may reduce the number of crossing points keeping the bridge number n unchanged, by applying a wave move introduced by \textit{T. Homma}, \textit{M. Ochiai} and \textit{M. Takahashi} [ibid. 17, 625-648 (1980; Zbl 0454.57002)]. The author studies how effective a wave move is to obtain the minimum projection among 3-bridge projections of a link. The answer is given by Theorem A: Every 3-bridge projection of a link can be transformed into a minimum crossing projection by a finite sequence of wave moves iff L is either a trivial knot, a split link or the Hopf link. As an application, genus 2 Heegaard splittings of a real projective space are discussed.