New perspectives on self-linking (Q705989)

The authors utilize a number of configuration spaces and their compactifications to define a ``self-linking'' (finite-type) invariant of a knot type. They show this geometric invariant to be equal to the coefficient \(c_2\) of the Conway polynomial, and that it is associated with the colinearities of 3 and 4 points on a representative knot, the stick number of the knot, and the complexity of a polynomial representation of the knot. The paper is enlivened by four pictures of knots with their quadrisecants.