Finite type invariants of nanowords and nanophrases (Q536061)

Gauss words are words such that each letter shows up exactly twice. Knots are represented by Gauss words but not any Gauss word represents a knot. When the class of knots is extended to that of virtual knots then each Gauss words represents a virtual knot. \textit{V. Turaev} [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 95, No. 2, 360--412 (2007; Zbl 1145.57018)] generalized Gauss words to nanowords and defined homotopies of these. Homotopy classes of nanowords are in one-to-one correspondence with equivalence classes of virtual knots. Furthermore, convenient choice of the parameters in this set up allows one to recover collections of topological objects other than virtual knots. Finite type invariants have an analogous definition here as in the topological case. In the article under review, the authors classify invariants of these homotopies defined by \textit{T. Fukunaga} [Fundam. Math. 214, No. 2, 101--118 (2011; Zbl 1243.57004)] into finite type invariants of several degrees. They also show that in the case of homotopy of Gauss words, while there are no finite type invariants of degree 1, 2, or 3, there is a unique one of degree 4.