DAHA-Jones polynomials of torus knots

DAHA-Jones polynomials of torus knots T(r, s) are studied systematically for reduced root systems and in the case of \(C^\vee C_1\). We prove the polynomiality and evaluation conjectures from the author’s previous paper on torus knots and extend the theory by the color exchange and further symmetries. The DAHA-Jones polynomials for \(C^\vee C_1\) depend on five parameters. Their surprising connection to the DAHA-superpolynomials (type A) for the knots \(T(2p+1,2)\) is obtained, a remarkable combination of the color exchange conditions and the author’s duality conjecture (justified by Gorsky and Negut). The uncolored DAHA-superpolynomials of torus knots are expected to coincide with the Khovanov–Rozansky stable polynomials and the superpolynomials defined via rational DAHA and/or in terms of certain Hilbert schemes. We end the paper with certain arithmetic counterparts of DAHA-Jones polynomials for the absolute Galois group in the case of \(C^\vee C_1\), developing the author’s previous results for \(A_1\).     

Knotoids and knots in the thickened torus

We study the relationship between knotoids and knots in the direct product of the two-dimensional torus and an interval. Each knotoid on the sphere can be lifted to a knot of geometric degree 1 in the thickened torus. We prove that lifting is a bijection on the set of prime knotoids of complexity greater than 1.     

Spherical structures on torus knots and links

We study two infinite families of cone manifolds endowed with a spherical metric. The singular set of the first of them is the torus knot t(2n + 1, 2) and the singular set of the second is the two-component link t(2n, 2). We find the domains of sphericity of these cone manifolds in terms of cone angles and obtain analytic formulas for their volumes.     

Heegaard splittings of twisted torus knots

Little is known on the classification of Heegaard splittings for hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Although Kobayashi gave a complete classification of Heegaard splittings for the exteriors of 2-bridge knots, our knowledge of other classes is extremely limited. In particular, there are very few hyperbolic manifolds that are known to have a unique minimal genus splitting. Here we demonstrate that an infinite class of hyperbolic knot exteriors, namely exteriors of certain “twisted torus knots” originally studied by Morimoto, Sakuma and Yokota, have a unique minimal genus Heegaard splitting of genus two. We also conjecture that these manifolds possess irreducible yet weakly reducible splittings of genus three. There are no known examples of such Heegaard splittings.     

Spaces of knots in the solid torus,knots in the thickened torus,and links in the 3-sphere

We recursively determine the homotopy type of the space of any irreducible framed link in the 3-sphere, modulo rotations. This leads us to the homotopy type of the space of any knot in the solid torus, thus answering a question posed by Arnold. We similarly study spaces of unframed links in the 3-sphere, modulo rotations, and spaces of knots in the thickened torus. The subgroup of meridional rotations splits as a direct factor of the fundamental group of the space of any framed link except the unknot. Its generators can be viewed as generalizations of the Gramain loop in the space of long knots. Taking the quotient by certain such rotations relates the spaces we study. All of our results generalize previous work of Hatcher and Budney. We provide many examples and explicitly describe generators of fundamental groups.

     

On cyclic bra nched coverings of torus knots

We prove that then-fold cyclic coverings of the 3-sphere branched over the torus knotsK(p,q), p>q2 (i.e. the Brieskorn manifolds in the sense of [12]) admit spines corresponding to cyclic presentations of groups ifp1 (modq). These presentations include as a very particular case the Sieradski groups, first introduced in [14] and successively obtained from geometric constructions in [4], [9], and [15]. So our main theorem answers in affirmative to an open question suggested by the referee in [14]. Then we discuss a question concerning cyclic presentations of groups and Alexander polynomials of knots.Work Performed under the auspicies of the G.N.S.A.G.A. of the C.N.R. (National Research Council) of Italy and partially supported by the Ministero per la Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica of Italy Within the projectsGeometria Reale e Complessa andTopologia and by the Korean Science and Engineering Foundation.     

An infinite family of Legendrian torus knots distinguished by cube number

For a knot K the cube number is a knot invariant defined to be the smallest n for which there is a cube diagram of size n for K. There is also a Legendrian version of this invariant called the Legendrian cube number. We will show that the Legendrian cube number distinguishes the Legendrian left hand torus knots with maximal Thurston-Bennequin number and maximal rotation number from the Legendrian left hand torus knots with maximal Thurston-Bennequin number and minimal rotation number.     

On the asymptotic expansion of the colored Jones polynomial for torus knots

In the asymptotic expansion of the hyperbolic specification of the colored Jones polynomial of torus knots, we identify different geometric contributions, in particular Chern–Simons invariant and twisted Reidemeister torsion with coefficients in the adjoint representation. This work is supported in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the first author (J. Dubois) is also supported by the European Community with Marie Curie Intra–European Fellowship (MEIF–CT–2006–025316). While writing the paper, J. Dubois visited the CRM. He thanks the CRM for its hospitality.     

Quasi-determinantal rational surface singularities

In this paper we give explicit equations for quasi-determinantal rational surface singularities, extending previous results for determinantal rational surface singularities.     

Time-optimal trajectories of generic control-affine systems have at worst iterated Fuller singularities

We consider in this paper the regularity problem for time-optimal trajectories of a single-input control-affine system on a n-dimensional manifold. We prove that, under generic conditions on the drift and the controlled vector field, any control u associated with an optimal trajectory is smooth out of a countable set of times. More precisely, there exists an integer K, only depending on the dimension n, such that the non-smoothness set of u is made of isolated points, accumulations of isolated points, and so on up to K-th order iterated accumulations.