Alternating link and its generalization

The alternating links give a classical class of links. They play an important role in Knot Theory. Ozsváth and Szabó introduced a quasi-alternating link which is a generalization of an alternating link. In this paper we review some results of alternating links and quasi-alternating links on the Jones polynomial and the Khovanov homology. Moreover, we introduce a long pass link. Several problems worthy of further study are provided.     

Sign conjugacy classes of the alternating groups

A conjugacy class C of a finite group G is a sign conjugacy class if every irreducible character of G takes value 0,1 or ?1 on C. In this paper, we classify the sign conjugacy classes of alternating groups.     

A Celtic Framework for Knots and Links

We describe a variant of a method used by modern graphic artists to design what are traditionally called Celtic knots, which are part of a larger family of designs called “mirror curves.” It is easily proved that every such design specifies an alternating projection of a link. We use medial graphs and graph minors to prove, conversely, that every alternating projection of a link is topologically equivalent to some Celtic link, specifiable by this method. We view Celtic representations of knots as a framework for organizing the study of knots, rather like knot mosaics or braid representations. The formalism of Celtic design suggests some new geometric invariants of links and some new recursively specifiable sequences of links. It also leads us to explore new variations of problems regarding such sequences, including calculating formulae for infinite sequences of knot polynomials. This involves a confluence of ideas from knot theory, topological graph theory, and the theory of orthogonal graph drawings.     

A Parametric Family of Intersective Polynomials with Galois Group A 4

We give an infinite family of intersective polynomials with Galois group A ₄, the alternating group on four letters.     

On the fibration of augmented link complements

We study the fibration of augmented link complements. Given the diagram of an augmented link we associate a spanning surface and a graph. We then show that this surface is a fiber for the link complement if and only if the associated graph is a tree. We further show that fibration is preserved under Dehn filling on certain components of these links. This last result is then used to prove that within a very large class of links, called locally alternating augmented links, every link is fibered.     

Lattices, graphs, and Conway mutation

The d-invariant of an integral, positive definite lattice Λ records the minimal norm of a characteristic covector in each equivalence class $({\textup{mod} \;}2\varLambda)$ . We prove that the 2-isomorphism type of a connected graph is determined by the d-invariant of its lattice of integral flows (or cuts). As an application, we prove that a reduced, alternating link diagram is determined up to mutation by the Heegaard Floer homology of the link’s branched double-cover. Thus, alternating links with homeomorphic branched double-covers are mutants.     

Restrictions on the structure of subgroup lattices of finite alternating and symmetric groups

Let G be a finite alternating or symmetric group. We describe an infinite class of finite lattices, none of which is isomorphic to any interval [H,G] in the subgroup lattice of G.     

Maximal Thurston-Bennequin numbers of alternating links

We show that the upper bound of the maximal Thurston-Bennequin number for an oriented alternating link given by the Kauffman polynomial is sharp. As an application, we confirm a question of Ferrand. We also give a formula of the maximal Thurston-Bennequin number for all two-bridge links. Finally, we introduce knot concordance invariants derived from the Thurston-Bennequin number and the Maslov number of a Legendrian knot.     

Alternating Paths along Axis-Parallel Segments

It is shown that for a set S of n pairwise disjoint axis-parallel line segments in the plane there is a simple alternating path of length . This bound is best possible in the worst case. In the special case that the n pairwise disjoint axis-parallel line segments are protruded (that is, if the intersection point of the lines through every two nonparallel segments is not visible from both segments), there is a simple alternating path of length n. Work on this paper was partially supported by National Science Foundation grants CCR-0049093 and IIS-0121562. A preliminary version of this paper has appeared in the Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Algorithms and Data Structures (Ottawa, ON, 2003), vol. 2748 of Lecture Notes on Computer Science, Springer, Berlin, 2003, pp. 389–400.     

A formula for the braid index of links

Morton and Franks–Williams independently gave a lower bound for the braid index b(L) of a link L in S³ in terms of the v-span of the Homfly-pt polynomial P_L(v,z) of L: . Up to now, many classes of knots and links satisfying the equality of this Morton–Franks–Williams's inequality have been founded. In this paper, we give a new such a class of knots and links and make an explicit formula for determining the braid index of knots and links that belong to the class . This gives simultaneously a new class of knots and links satisfying the Jones conjecture which says that the algebraic crossing number in a minimal braid representation is a link invariant. We also give an algorithm to find a minimal braid representative for a given knot or link in .     

Rational structure on algebraic tangles and closed incompressible surfaces in the complements of algebraically alternating knots and links

Let F be an incompressible, meridionally incompressible and not boundary-parallel surface with boundary in the complement of an algebraic tangle (B,T). Then F separates the strings of T in B and the boundary slope of F is uniquely determined by (B,T) and hence we can define the slope of the algebraic tangle. In addition to the Conway's tangle sum, we define a natural product of two tangles. The slopes and binary operation on algebraic tangles lead to an algebraic structure which is isomorphic to the rational numbers.We introduce a new knot and link class, algebraically alternating knots and links, roughly speaking which are constructed from alternating knots and links by replacing some crossings with algebraic tangles. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a closed surface to be incompressible and meridionally incompressible in the complement of an algebraically alternating knot or link K. In particular we show that if K is a knot, then the complement of K does not contain such a surface.     

Unsigned State Models for the Jones Polynomial

It is a well-known and fundamental result that the Jones polynomial can be expressed as Potts and vertex partition functions of signed plane graphs. Here we consider constructions of the Jones polynomial as state models of unsigned graphs and show that the Jones polynomial of any link can be expressed as a vertex model of an unsigned embedded graph. In the process of deriving this result, we show that for every diagram of a link in S ³ there exists a diagram of an alternating link in a thickened surface (and an alternating virtual link) with the same Kauffman bracket. We also recover two recent results in the literature relating to the Jones and Bollobás-Riordan polynomials and show they arise from two different interpretations of the same embedded graph.     

On L-spaces and left-orderable fundamental groups

Examples suggest that there is a correspondence between L-spaces and three-manifolds whose fundamental groups cannot be left-ordered. In this paper we establish the equivalence of these conditions for several large classes of manifolds. In particular, we prove that they are equivalent for any closed, connected, orientable, geometric three-manifold that is non-hyperbolic, a family which includes all closed, connected, orientable Seifert fibred spaces. We also show that they are equivalent for the twofold branched covers of non-split alternating links. To do this we prove that the fundamental group of the twofold branched cover of an alternating link is left-orderable if and only if it is a trivial link with two or more components. We also show that this places strong restrictions on the representations of the fundamental group of an alternating knot complement with values in $\text{ Homeo}_+(S^1)$ .     

Alternating Direction Method for a Class of Sylvester Matrix Equations with Linear Matrix Inequality Constraint

This paper introduces an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) for finding solutions to a class of Sylvester matrix equation AXB = E subject to a linear matrix inequality constraint CXD≥G. Preliminary convergence properties of ADMM are presented. Numerical experiments are performed to illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of ADMM. In addition, some numerical comparisons with a recent algorithm are also given.     

The Method of Alternating Resolvents Revisited

The purpose of this article is to prove a strong convergence result associated with a generalization of the method of alternating resolvents introduced by the authors in convergence of the method of alternating resolvents [4 O. A. Boikanyo and G. Moro?anu ( to appear ). Strong convergence of the method of alternating resolvents . J. Nonlinear Convex Anal.  [Google Scholar]] under minimal assumptions on the control parameters involved. Thus, this article represents a significant improvement of the article mentioned above.     

A graph-theoretic approach to a partial order of knots and links

We say that a link L₁ is an s-major of a link L₂ if any diagram of L₁ can be transformed into a diagram of L₂ by changing some crossings and smoothing some crossings. This relation is a partial ordering on the set of all prime alternating links. We determine this partial order for all prime alternating knots and links with the crossing number less than or equal to six. The proofs are given by graph-theoretic methods.     

Splitting Methods for Convex Clustering

Clustering is a fundamental problem in many scientific applications. Standard methods such as k-means, Gaussian mixture models, and hierarchical clustering, however, are beset by local minima, which are sometimes drastically suboptimal. Recently introduced convex relaxations of k-means and hierarchical clustering shrink cluster centroids toward one another and ensure a unique global minimizer. In this work, we present two splitting methods for solving the convex clustering problem. The first is an instance of the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM); the second is an instance of the alternating minimization algorithm (AMA). In contrast to previously considered algorithms, our ADMM and AMA formulations provide simple and unified frameworks for solving the convex clustering problem under the previously studied norms and open the door to potentially novel norms. We demonstrate the performance of our algorithm on both simulated and real data examples. While the differences between the two algorithms appear to be minor on the surface, complexity analysis and numerical experiments show AMA to be significantly more efficient. This article has supplementary materials available online.     

Polytopes of high rank for the alternating groups

There is a well-known correspondence between abstract regular polytopes and string C-groups. In this paper, for each d?3, a string C-group with d generators, isomorphic to an alternating group of degree n is constructed (for some n?9), or equivalently an abstract regular d-polytope, is produced with automorphism group Alt(n). A method that extends the CPR graph of a polytope to a different CPR graph of a larger (or possibly isomorphic) polytope is used to prove that various groups are themselves string C-groups.     

A note on internally disjoint alternating paths in bipartite graphs

Let G be a balanced bipartite graph with partite sets X and Y, which has a perfect matching, and let x∈X and y∈Y. Let k be a positive integer. Then we prove that if G has k internally disjoint alternating paths between x and y with respect to some perfect matching, then G has k internally disjoint alternating paths between x and y with respect to every perfect matching.