Whitehead double and Milnor invariants

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Publication:661390



Abstract: We consider the operation of Whitehead double on a component of a link and study the behavior of Milnor invariants under this operation. We show that this operation turns a link whose Milnor invariants of length < k are all zero into a link with vanishing Milnor invariants of length < 2k, and we provide formulas for the first non-vanishing ones. As a consequence, we obtain statements relating the notions of link-homotopy and self Delta-equivalence via the Whitehead double operation. By using our result, we show that a Brunnian link L is link-homotopic to the unlink if and only if a link L with a single component Whitehed doubled is self Delta-equivalent to the unlink.


The authors show that a link with vanishing Milnor invariants of length \(k\) or less may be converted to a link whose Milnor invariants of length \(2k+1\) or less vanish by replacing any component by its Whitehead \(n\)-double, \(n \neq 0\). When this is done the authors are able to calculate the first non-zero Milnor invariant. Results relating self \(\Delta\)-equivalence and link homotopy follow, and are specialized to Brunnian links. The replacement procedure is generalized and other results obtained including the vanishing of all Milnor invariants for a Brunnian link which has been twice subjected to the replacement operation.











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