Bottom tangles and universal invariants

A bottom tangle is a tangle in a cube consisting only of arc components, each of which has the two endpoints on the bottom line of the cube, placed next to each other. We introduce a subcategory $B$ of the category of framed, oriented tangles, which acts on the set of bottom tangles. We give a finite set of generators of $B$ , which provides an especially convenient way to generate all the bottom tangles, and hence all the framed, oriented links, via closure. We also define a kind of “braided Hopf algebra action” on the set of bottom tangles.

Using the universal invariant of bottom tangles associated to each ribbon Hopf algebra $H$ , we define a braided functor $J$ from $B$ to the category ${M o d}_{H}$ of left $H$ –modules. The functor $J$ , together with the set of generators of $B$ , provides an algebraic method to study the range of quantum invariants of links. The braided Hopf algebra action on bottom tangles is mapped by $J$ to the standard braided Hopf algebra structure for $H$ in ${M o d}_{H}$ .

Several notions in knot theory, such as genus, unknotting number, ribbon knots, boundary links, local moves, etc are given algebraic interpretations in the setting involving the category $B$ . The functor $J$ provides a convenient way to study the relationships between these notions and quantum invariants.

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Keywords

knots, links, tangles, braided categories, ribbon Hopf algebras, braided Hopf algebras, universal link invariants, transmutation, local moves, Hennings invariants, bottom tangles, claspers

Mathematical Subject Classification 2000

Primary: 57M27

Secondary: 57M25, 18D10

References

Forward citations

Publication

Received: 20 December 2005

Accepted: 4 May 2006

Published: 7 September 2006

Authors

Kazuo Habiro
Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences Kyoto University Kyoto 606–8502 Japan

Volume 6, issue 3 (2006)

Kazuo Habiro

Abstract