A \(G\)-family of quandles and handlebody-knots (Q470861)

The authors introduce the notion of a \(G\)-family of quandles \(X\), a set \(X\) equipped with quandle operations indexed by a group \(G\). More precisely, a \(G\)-family of quandles \(X\) is a set \(X\) with a family of quandle operations \(\{\ast^{g}\}_{g \in G}\) indexed by a group \(G\), satisyfing the additional axioms \[ x \ast^{gh} y = (x \ast^{g} y) \ast^{h}y, \mathrm{ and } \;(x \ast^{g} y) \ast^{h} z = (x \ast^{h} z) \ast^{h^{-1}gh} (y \ast^{h} z). \] As the authors write, the notion of \(G\)-family of quandles comes from handlebody-knot theory: By considering the coloring of a diagram of a handlebody-knot by a \(G\)-family of quandles and its (co)homology theory, the authors obtain a quandle cocycle invariant of handlebody-knots. As the authors demonstrate, this quandle cocycle invariant is useful and powerful in distinguishing mirror-images and pairs of handlebody-knots whose complements have isomorphic fundamental groups.