Combinatorial cohomology of the space of long knots (Q907776)

In this paper, the author constructs a combinatorial cochain complex and identifies a submodule of its cohomology that allows for computations in the cohomology of the space of knots. In more detail, start with a finite collection of finite subsets of \(\mathbb R\) (these are \textit{colored leaf diagrams}, the most basic building blocks in the author's setup) and then complete them to spanning trees by connecting all colors of the same color by an abstract tree. Then let \({\mathcal A}^i_{d}\) be the free \(\mathbb Z\)-module generated by equivalence classes of tree diagrams of degree \(d\) and codimension \(i\) (these numbers have to do with the number of leaves) and let \(\widetilde{\mathcal A}^i_{d}\) be the quotient of \({\mathcal A}^i_{d}\) by the \textit{triangle relation} (familiar from the work of Polyak and Polyak-Viro). Finally let \(\widetilde{\mathcal A}^i_{d, \text{far}}\) be a certain submodule of \(\widetilde{\mathcal A}^i_{d}\) (generated by \textit{R-far monotonic diagrams}). The main result is that there is a map \[ H^i_{d, \text{far}}\longrightarrow H^i(\mathcal K\setminus \Sigma) \] where \(\mathcal K\) is the space of smooth maps \(\mathbb R\to\mathbb R^3\) (with certain conditions) and \(\Sigma\) is the subset of those maps consisting of non-embeddings (this is Vassiliev's setup where the space of knots is studied through the discriminant set \(\Sigma\)). The map itself is given by a pairing between tree diagrams and \textit{germs} which the author defined and studied in detail in [J. Knot Theory Ramifications 24, No. 10, Article ID 1540004, 30 p. (2015; Zbl 1330.57009)]. Its image consists of the invariants induced by Goussarov-Polyak-Viro formulas for long virtual knots, and the author conjectures that the image is precisely the Vassiliev cohomology classes of degree at most \(d\). A considerable amount of careful analysis is required to set up the pairing, and a helpful feature is that the cochains in the space of knots have a geometric interpretation through certain ``simple'' strata. The author also provides examples where he gives new formulas for some Vassiliev invariants in low degrees by integrating his cocycle formulas over the Gramain loop and the Hatcher loop.