A colored operad for string link infection (Q907773)

This paper is a generalization of Budney's work on the action of the little disks operad \(\mathcal C_2\) on the space of knots \(\mathcal K\) to string links. Namely, in [\textit{R. Budney}, Topology 46, No. 1, 1--27 (2007; Zbl 1114.57003)], Budney showed that \(\mathcal K\) is freely generated over \(\mathcal C_2\) by the space of prime knots. He improved this result by defining an operad \(\mathcal{SP}\) that encodes splicing of knots and showing that \(\mathcal K\) is freely generated over a certain suboperad of \(\mathcal{SP}\) by torus and hyperbolic knots. The authors of the paper under review set out to generalize these results from knots to the space \(\mathcal L_c\) of string links with \(c\) components (embeddings of \(c\) disjoint intervals into \(I\times D^2\) with prescribed behavior at the boundary). In analogy with Budney's work, they define a colored operad \(\mathcal I\) encoding string link infection, which is a generalization of splicing from knots to links. The main result is that this operad acts on \(\mathcal L_c\) and restricts to Budney's splicing operad when \(c=1\) (with the same action). Building on previous work [\textit{R. Blair} et al., J. Knot Theory Ramifications 24, No. 2, Article ID 1550005, 24 p. (2015; Zbl 1344.57003)], the authors use the action of \(\mathcal I\) to show that \(\mathcal L_2\) is freely generated by prime string links, thus generalizing Budney's result for knots. The paper is nicely written, with lots of helpful pictures describing operad actions provided throughout. Useful background on string link infection, (colored) operads and their actions, and Budney's work is also given. The discussion concludes with interesting potential further avenues of investigation.