Positive braids minimize ascending number

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Davis, Lowell, Meier, Jeffrey
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Davis, Lowell
Meier, Jeffrey
author_facet Davis, Lowell
Meier, Jeffrey
contents A well-known algorithm for unknotting knots involves traversing a knot diagram and changing each crossing that is first encountered from below. The minimal number of crossings changed in this way across all diagrams for a knot is called the ascending number of the knot. The ascending number is bounded below by the unknotting number. We show that for knots obtained as the closure of a positive braid, the ascending number equals the unknotting number. We also present data indicating that a similar result may hold for positive knots. We use this data to examine which low-crossing knots have the property that their ascending number is realized in a minimal crossing diagram, showing that there are at most 5 hyperbolic, alternating knots with at most 12 crossings with this property.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_15490
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Positive braids minimize ascending number
Davis, Lowell
Meier, Jeffrey
Geometric Topology
A well-known algorithm for unknotting knots involves traversing a knot diagram and changing each crossing that is first encountered from below. The minimal number of crossings changed in this way across all diagrams for a knot is called the ascending number of the knot. The ascending number is bounded below by the unknotting number. We show that for knots obtained as the closure of a positive braid, the ascending number equals the unknotting number. We also present data indicating that a similar result may hold for positive knots. We use this data to examine which low-crossing knots have the property that their ascending number is realized in a minimal crossing diagram, showing that there are at most 5 hyperbolic, alternating knots with at most 12 crossings with this property.
title Positive braids minimize ascending number
topic Geometric Topology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.15490