On the group of ring motions of an H-trivial link (Q2315298)

This work calculates presentations of so-called ring groups, a theory going back to Dahm, Goldsmith and Brendle/Hatcher. A ring is a round circle in a plane in \(\mathbb{R}^3\). A link \(L\) consisting of rings in an open submanifold \(M\) of \(\mathbb{R}^3\) is called a ring link. The ring group \(R(M,L)\) is the group of equivalence classes of the ring link \(L\) in \(M\) by the relation induced via isotopies from \(L\) to \(L\) through ring links in \(M\) where the product is defined by concatenation. Finally, the ring group \(R(M,L_1,L_2)\) is the subgroup of \(R(M,L_1 \sqcup L_2)\) represented by isotopies non-interfering between \(L_1\) and \(L_2\). All this is made precise considering isotopies as loops in configuration space. The main results consist of presentations of the ring groups \(R(\mathbb{R}^3,H_1,H_2)\), \(R(\mathbb{R}^3,H)\) and \(R(\mathbb{R}^3,H \sqcup C)\) where \(H = H_1 \sqcup H_2\) is a Hopf ring link and \(C\) is a trivial ring link distant from \(H\). The proofs involve certain short exact sequences of ring groups. A special role plays the Dahm homomorphism \(R(\mathbb{R}^3,L) \to \mathrm{Aut}(\pi_1(\mathbb{R}^3 \setminus L))\). The long-term objective is to use the methods applied here for treating cases of more Hopf rings and trivial rings.