2-tangles

DOI10.1023/A:1007449529401zbMATH Open0905.57017arXivq-alg/9703033OpenAlexW4256504631MaRDI QIDQ1386540FDOQ1386540

Laurel Langford, John Baez

Publication date: 14 January 1999

Published in: Letters in Mathematical Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Just as links may be algebraically described as certain morphisms in the category of tangles, compact surfaces smoothly embedded in R^4 may be described as certain 2-morphisms in the 2-category of `2-tangles in 4 dimensions'. In this announcement we give a purely algebraic characterization of the 2-category of unframed unoriented 2-tangles in 4 dimensions as the `free semistrict braided monoidal 2-category with duals on one unframed self-dual object'. A forthcoming paper will contain a proof of this result using the movie moves of Carter, Rieger and Saito. We comment on how one might use this result to construct invariants of 2-tangles.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/q-alg/9703033

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zbMATH Keywords

surfacemanifoldmovie moves\(2\)-tanglesemistrict braided monoidal \(2\)-categorysmooth embedding in Euclidean spaceunframed self-dual object

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Embeddings in differential topology (57R40)

Cited In (11)

• Computations of quandle cocycle invariants of knotted curves and surfaces
• Higher-dimensional algebra. IV: 2-tangles.
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Finite groups, spherical 2-categories, and 4-manifold invariants
• 2-categories and 2-knots
• Crossing with the circle in Dijkgraaf–Witten theory and applications to topological phases of matter
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• Spherical 2-categories and 4-manifold invariants
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• State-sum invariants of knotted curves and surfaces from quandle cohomology
• Quandle cohomology and state-sum invariants of knotted curves and surfaces

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