Amphicheirality of links and Alexander invariants (Q659993)

The main result is to give a certain congruence equation between the integers coming from homological information for an amphicheiral link. It implies that if the sum of the number of components and the total linking number is even, then the multi-variable Alexander polynomial \(\Delta(t_1,\dots,t_r)\) of an amphicheiral link satisfies \(\Delta(-1,\dots,-1)=0\). Also, it is shown that if a link with an even number of component is component-preservingly \((\pm)\)-amphicheiral, then \(\Delta(t_1,\dots,t_r)=0\). These results are deduced mainly from the works of \textit{A. Kawauchi} [in: H. Nencka (ed.), Low dimensional topology. Proceedings of a conference, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, January 12--17, 1998. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. Contemp. Math. 233, 97--116 (1999; Zbl 0946.57012)]. By using these results combined with known facts, all prime amphicheiral links with at least two components and up to nine crossings are determined. There are only 8 links; \(2_1^2,6_2^2,6_2^3,8_8^2,8_6^3,8_3^4,8_4^3,9_{61}^2\) in the notation of [\textit{D. Rolfsen}, Knots and links. 2nd print. with corr. Mathematics Lecture Series. 7. Houston, TX: Publish or Perish (1990; Zbl 0854.57002)].