Obstructions to trivializing a knot

DOI10.1007/BF02771530MaRDI QIDQ1881738zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Joan Birman, John Atwell Moody

Publication date 15 October 2004

Published in Israel Journal of Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0206283

zbMATH Keywords

braidsexchange-reducing movesknotsrepresentations of braid groups

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Braid groups; Artin groups (20F36)

Abstract: The recent proof by Bigelow and Krammer that the braid groups are linear opens the possibility of applications to the study of knots and links. It was proved by the first author and Menasco that any closed braid representative of the unknot can be systematically simplified to a round planar circle by a sequence of exchange moves and reducing moves. In this paper we establish connections between the faithfulness of the Krammer-Lawrence representation and the problem of recognizing when the conjugacy class of a closed braid admits an exchange move or a reducing move.

Review text

J. Birman and W. Menasco showed that a closed braid representing the unknot can be reduced to a 1-braid by a finite sequence of ``exchange moves and ``reducing moves. Using the work of Krammer-Lawrence and Bigelow on faithful matrix representations of the braid group \(B_n\) the authors prove algebraic criteria for the detection of such moves. The tool is an intersection pairing defined with the help of the above mentioned representations of \(B_n\). The criteria imply so-called ``simple homology classes represented by simple loops. It remains an unsolved question how to give an algebraic description of these simple homology classes. This would suffice to make this approach into an algorithm to recognize the unknot.

Recommendations

• Studying Links Via Closed Braids. V: The Unlink
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Cited in

(9)

• Obstructing four-torsion in the classical knot concordance group
• The Unknotting Problem
• Pseudo knots and an obstruction to cosmetic crossings
• An obstruction to a knot being deform-spun via Alexander polynomials
• Studying Links Via Closed Braids. V: The Unlink
• Matrix presentations of braids and applications
• TOWARDS AN IMPLEMENTATION OF THE B–H ALGORITHM FOR RECOGNIZING THE UNKNOT
• Exchangeability and Non-Conjugacy of Braid Representatives
• Alexander-Beck modules detect the unknot

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