Vanishing of 3-loop Jacobi diagrams of odd degree (Q2371299)

A Jacobi diagram is a graph whose vertices have valency 1 or 3 and to each of whose trivalent vertices is assigned a cyclic order of the 3 edges incident on it. Jacobi diagrams play an essential role in the theory of Vassiliev invariants and Kontsevich invariants of knots. The space of Jacobi diagrams is the vector space over \(\mathbb{Q}\) spanned by the Jacobi diagrams subject to two defining relations called the Anti-Symmetry and IHX relations. An edge incident on a univalent vertex is called a leg. It is conjectured that the space of Jacobi diagrams with an odd number of legs vanishes. This would imply that no Vassiliev invariant can distinguish a knot from its inverse. A connected Jacobi diagram is called an \(n\)-loop if its first Betti number is equal to \(n\). Dasbach claimed in his thesis to have proved that the space of \(n\)-loop Jacobi diagrams with an odd number of legs is zero for \(n\leq 6\), but his proof has a gap for \(n\geq 3\). The purpose of the paper under review is to prove the vanishing of such a space when \(n=3\). The \(4\)-loop, \(5\)-loop and \(6\)-loop cases remain open. The proof of the main result mainly goes through the identification of the space of \(3\)-loop Jacobi diagrams with a quotient space of a direct sum of polynomial algebras.