Knot invariants in 3-manifolds and essential tori. (Q5930558)

The problem solved in the paper is a complete determination of those manifolds for which a certain family of invariants of singular knots with one double point can be 'integrated' to give a knot invariant. The authors study knot invariands defined homologically. Here is a sketch of the idea. Let \(M\) be a compact oriented 3-manifold. To each pair \((\tau , \gamma )\) where \(\tau \in H^1 (M;Z/n)\), and \(\gamma\) is a free homotopy class in \(M\) satisfying \(\tau (\gamma )=0\), we constructed a function \(V_{\tau ,\gamma } (K_t) \in Z[Z/n]\) of homotopies \(K_t\) with \(K_0\) and \(K_1\) embedded knots in the class \(\gamma\). The function \(v_{\tau ,\gamma } (K_0,K_1) = V_{\tau , \gamma } (K_t)\) vanishes if \(K_0=K_1\) and thus it is invariant of knots. Authors use the similar construction for their invariants of singular knots.