06-1350/Class Notes for Tuesday September 12: Difference between revisions
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===Introduction=== |
===Introduction=== |
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at every crossing is <i>mono</i> or <i>tri-chromatic</i>. |
at every crossing is <i>mono</i> or <i>tri-chromatic</i>. |
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<br><br> |
<br><br> |
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We can now distinguish the |
We can now distinguish the trefoil from the unknot as the trefoil is 3-colourable while the |
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unknot is not. However, we cannot distinguish (yet) the |
unknot is not. However, we cannot distinguish (yet) the trefoil from its mirror image, so later we |
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will look for more powerful invariants. |
will look for more powerful invariants. |
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<br><br> |
<br><br> |
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meet, at such a crossing, green will appear. |
meet, at such a crossing, green will appear. |
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Showing that invariance under R3 is more tedious (and is left as an exercise). |
Showing that invariance under R3 is more tedious (and is left as an exercise). |
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===Jones Polynomial=== |
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The simplest way to define the <i>Jones polynomial</i> is via the <i>Kauffman bracket</i>. The idea is to |
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eliminate all crossings using the rule: |
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<br><br> |
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<center> |
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http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/6/64/Kauffman.png |
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<br> |
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</center> |
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<br> |
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In the right hand side, the first bracket is called the <i>0-smoothing</i> and the second |
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is called the <i>1-smoothing</i>. To calculate the Kauffman bracket we must sum over all |
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possible smoothings. For instance, for the trifoil, we 2<sup>3</sup> = 8 summands, one of which will |
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be: |
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<br><br> |
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<center> |
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http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/8/8b/Trifoil-smoothing.png |
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<br> |
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</center> |
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<br> |
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Each summand will have no crossing and thus will be a union of (possibly nested) unknots. |
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We define the bracket polynomial of k unknots to be d<sup>k-1</sup> for some indeterminate d. Our hopes |
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that our polynomial in ℤ[d,A,B] will be an invariant under the Reidmeister moves. We first |
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verify R2. |
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<br><br> |
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<center> |
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http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/c/cd/Jones-r2.png |
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<br> |
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</center> |
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<br> |
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Collecting like terms and comparing we find AB = 1 and A<sup>2</sup> + B<sup>2</sup> + dAB = 0. Thus, we must |
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have B = A<sup>-1</sup> and d = -(A<sup>2</sup> + A<sup>2</sup>). Things are looking bad, we still have two moves to verify |
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and we already lost two of our variables. |
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<br><br> |
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We now verify R3. For this we remark that |
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<br><br> |
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<center> |
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http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/f/fb/Jones-r3.png |
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<br> |
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</center> |
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<br> |
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The two diagrams with coefficients B coincide; and the diagrams with coefficients A differ by |
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two R2 moves. Now we verify R1: |
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<br><br> |
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<center> |
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http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/9/99/Jones-r1.png |
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<br> |
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</center> |
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<br> |
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The right hand side evaluates to A + A<sup>-1</sup>(-A<sup>2</sup> -A<sup>-2</sup>) = -A<sup>3</sup> of the desired. This is |
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unfortunate. One could salvage something by taking A to be one of the cube roots of -1; |
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however, the right way out of this is to define another invariant which fails in the exactly the |
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same way, and multiply it with the bracket polynomial. |
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===Writhe=== |
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The invariant we are looking for is called the <i>writhe</i>. If D is a diagram of an oriented knot, we |
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define |
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<br><br> |
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<center> |
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http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/8/88/Mathtext1.png |
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</center> |
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<br> |
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We choose +1 if the crossing is positive (the overpass goes over the underpass from left to right) and -1 if the crossing is negative (otherwise): |
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<br><br> |
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<center> |
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http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/3/38/Crossings.png |
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<br> |
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</center> |
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<br> |
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Lets have an example. Notice that the orientation of the knot is actually irrelevant. |
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<br><br> |
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<center> |
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http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/c/c5/Writhe-example.png |
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<br> |
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</center> |
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<br> |
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We now show that the writhe is also invariant under R2 and R3, under R1 we gain ±1 |
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depending which way we apply it. In R2, the two crossings have opposite signs; and in R3, the |
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diagonal crossing doesn’t change sign and the other two are reversed. |
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<br><br> |
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<center> |
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http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/f/f9/Writhe-reid.png |
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<br> |
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</center> |
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<br> |
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It follows that 〈D〉⋅(-A<sup>-3</sup>)<sup>w(d)</sup> is a knot invariant. This is a polynomial in A, we now |
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substitute q<sup> |
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http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/2/23/Mathtext2.png</sup> for A and call this the <i>Jones polynomial</i> (which strictly speaking, is not really a |
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polynomial). |
Latest revision as of 22:31, 21 October 2006
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Introduction
We wish to define a knot as a continuous injective map from the circle to 3-dimensional Euclidean space
up to continuous homotopy.
Unfortunately this definition doesn’t quite work as most of the knots that we wish to
distinguish will actually be equivalent (we may shrink down the knotted part to a point). For this
reason, we replace continuous with smooth or piecewise linear (this time we may not shrink down
the knotted part to the point as we will get a singularity). We will not discuss this in detail, but
rather state the results:
Every knot can be represented by a finite diagram, e.g.
http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/e/e1/Trifoil.png
Two such diagrams represent the same knot if they differ by a sequence of
Reidemeister moves. When we draw diagrams, we often don’t draw the entire knot,
only the parts which are to be changed.
An invariant is a map from diagrams to say formal power series Z((q)) which respects R1 - R3. Thus, the invariant descends to equivalence classes of diagrams, i.e to knots.
http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/8/8a/Reid.png
R1: top left, R2: top right, R3: bottom middle
3 Colouring
We give an example of an invariant. Define I3 : {diagrams}→{true, false},
I3 is true
whenever its arcs may be coloured with red, green, blue (RGB), such that all colours appear and
at every crossing is mono or tri-chromatic.
We can now distinguish the trefoil from the unknot as the trefoil is 3-colourable while the
unknot is not. However, we cannot distinguish (yet) the trefoil from its mirror image, so later we
will look for more powerful invariants.
http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/9/93/Trifoil2.png
We now prove that I3 is an invariant, that is we need to show that I3 is preserved after R1, R2 and R3. The test for R1 is straight forward:
http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/images/2/25/3col-a.png
For R2, we have two possibilities. The second case for R2 requires further consideration: where did the green go? Here, we
remember that we are only drawing part of the diagram. Since the red and blue branches must
meet, at such a crossing, green will appear.
Showing that invariance under R3 is more tedious (and is left as an exercise).