Milnor invariants for spatial graphs

Abstract: Link homotopy has been an active area of research for knot theorists since its introduction by Milnor in the 1950s. We introduce a new equivalence relation on spatial graphs called component homotopy, which reduces to link homotopy in the classical case. Unlike previous attempts at generalizing link homotopy to spatial graphs, our new relation allows analogues of some standard link homotopy results and invariants. In particular we can define a type of Milnor group for a spatial graph under component homotopy, and this group determines whether or not the spatial graph is splittable. More surprisingly, we will also show that whether the spatial graph is splittable up to component homotopy depends only on the link homotopy class of the links contained within it. Numerical invariants of the relation will also be produced.

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In this paper the author introduces a new homotopy equivalence relation on embedded graphs in the 3-sphere. Other homotopy equivalence relations on embedded graphs have been defined previously, e.g. by \textit{K. Taniyama} [Topology 33, No. 3, 509--523 (1994; Zbl 0823.57006)]. Two embeddings \(\Phi\) and \(\Phi'\) of an abstract graph \(G\) are called component-homotopic if \(\Phi\) can be transformed to \(\Phi'\) by ambient isotopies and crossing changes between edges that belong to the same component of \(G\). Of course, if \(G\) is connected any two embeddings are component-homotopic. This equivalence relation is a direct generalization of link-homotopy, introduced by \textit{J. Milnor} [Ann. Math. (2) 59, 177--195 (1954; Zbl 0055.16901)]. The author generalizes to component-homotopy some relevant results about link-homotopy. Namely, to an embedding \(\Phi\) of \(G\), he associates a Milnor group \(CM(\Phi)\), which is invariant under component-homotopy; this group is a certain quotient of \(\pi_1(S^3-\Phi)\), and it is also a quotient of \(CMF(G)\), a certain group associated to the abstract graph \(G\). It is shown that \(CMF(G)\cong CM(\Phi)\), where the isomorphism preserves generators up to conjugacy, if and only if \(\Phi\) is component-homotopic to a completely split embedding. It is also shown that an embedding \(\Phi\) is component-homotopic to a completely split embedding, if and only if every constituent link of \(\Phi\) is link-homotopic to the trivial link, where a constituent link \(L\) of \(\Phi\) is a link formed by cycles of \(\Phi\) such that at most one component of \(L\) is contained in a component of \(\Phi\).

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