The incompatibility of crossing number and bridge number for knot diagrams (Q2421862)

This investigation of the interplay between bridge number and crossing number of classical knots is based on a combinatorial definition of the bridge number of a diagram, the Wirtinger number \(\omega(D)\), which is accessible to algorithmic calculation. The minimum of the \(\omega(D)\) for all diagrams \(D\) of a knot \(K\) is shown to coincide with the classical bridge number \(\beta(K)\), by [\textit{R. Blair} et al., ``Wirtinger systems of generators of knot groups'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1705.03108}, submitted to Commun. Anal. Geom.]. The present work introduces a geometric so-called perpendicular bridge number \(b_{\perp}(D)\) of a diagram and proves \(b_{\perp}(D) = \omega(D)\) (Theorem 1.2). By Theorem 1.3, the gap between \(b_{\perp}(D)\) and \(\beta(K)\) can be arbitrarily large for alternating knots \(K\) and diagrams \(D\) of \(K\) minimizing the crossing number. This uses Thistlethwaite's unknot diagram, multiple knot sums and super-additivity of \(b_{\perp}(D)\). The authors conjecture that every knot has an embedding minimizing crossing number and bridge number at the same time. This is a subtle question because no nontrivial knot has a diagram minimizing the crossing number and the so-called overpass bridge number (Theorem 5.1), and because a flype move can change the Wirtinger number as proved in the Appendix by the first author and \textit{N. Morrison}.