The prevalence of persistent tangles (Q2293008)

A persistent tangle is a (one or two string) tangle whose presence in a knot diagram implies the diagram is non-trivially knotted. ``We provide new methods for constructing persistent tangles. Our techniques rely mainly on the existence of non-trivial colorings for the tangles in question.'' For example, if there is a non-trivial coloring of a tangle \(T\) with all ends receiving the same color, say \(a\), then if \(T\) is found in a knot diagram \(D\), then \(D\) can be non-trivially colored by coloring the arcs in the diagram which do not belong to \(T\) monochromatically with the color \(a\). Thus \(D\) represents a non-trivial knot. One of the main results in this article is that any knot admitting a non-trivial coloring gives rise to persistent tangles. Furthermore, a tangle is rationally irreducible if no ambient isotopy plus adjacent end twisting can make it into a tangle with fewer crossings, and it is neither an infinity tangle nor a zero tangle. A tangle \(T\) is said to be irreducible if it is rationally irreducible, without local knots, and if whenever the numerator \(N(T)\) or denominator \(D(T)\) closure has one component, then it is a non-trivial knot. The authors conjecture that an irreducible tangle is a persistent tangle.