Sharp edge-homotopy on spatial graphs (Q558718)

A \textit{sharp-move} is an unknotting operation for knots. Two spatial embeddings of a graph are said to be \textit{sharp edge-homotopic} if they can be transformed into each other by sharp-moves on the same edges and ambient isotopies. The article investigates the implications between sharp edge-homotopy equivalence and other known equivalences of spatial graphs and gives a complete classification of theta-curves up to sharp edge-homotopy. For the classification, the author utilizes the Arf invariants of the links which are derived from theta-curves. Moreover the author gives examples of infinitely many spatial graphs which are not delta edge (resp. vertex)-homotopic but sharp edge-homotopic.