Framings of spatial graphs (Q2632549)

This paper is situated at the intersection of two trends: (1) the theory of framed spatial graphs; (2) the study of vertex-framed spatial graphs. The former can be found in [\textit{V. G. Turaev}, Quantum invariants of knots and 3-manifolds. 3rd edition. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (2016; Zbl 1346.57002)]; for the latter, see [\textit{L. H. Kauffman}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 311, No. 2, 697--710 (1989; Zbl 0672.57008)]. Let \(G\) be a spatial graph. In the paper under review the authors present a method to reduce the problem of isotopy classification of framings of \(G\) to the problem of isotopy classification of the corresponding vertex framings of \(G\). The \textit{vertex framing} corresponding to a given framing is part of the given framing, which is the union of \(G\) and pairwise disjoint disk neighborhoods of the vertices of \(G\). The resulting isotopy classification of framings of \(G\) appears to be analogous to the classification of framings of classical knots.