Louis H Kauffman

Vassily Olegovich Manturov

This book consists of a selection of articles devoted to new ideas and developments in low dimensional topology. Low dimensions refer to dimensions three and four for the topology of manifolds and their submanifolds. Thus we have papers related to both manifolds and to knotted submanifolds of dimension one in three (classical knot theory) and two in four (surfaces in four dimensional spaces). Some of the work involves virtual knot theory where the knots are abstractions of classical knots but can be represented by knots embedded in surfaces. This leads both to new interactions with classical topology and to new interactions with essential combinatorics.

New Ideas In Low Dimensional Topology

Vassily Manturov

Since discovery of the Jones polynomial, knot theory has enjoyed a virtual explosion of important results and now plays a significant role in modern mathematics. In a unique presentation with contents not found in any other monograph, Knot Theory describes, with full proofs, the main concepts and the latest investigations in the field. The book is divided into six thematic sections. The first part discusses "pre-Vassiliev" knot theory, from knot arithmetics through the Jones polynomial and the famous Kauffman-Murasugi theorem. The second part explores braid theory, including braids in different spaces and simple word recognition algorithms. A section devoted to the Vassiliev knot invariants follows, wherein the author proves that Vassiliev invariants are stronger than all polynomial invariants and introduces Bar-Natan's theory on Lie algebra respresentations and knots. The fourth part describes a new way, proposed by the author, to encode knots by d-diagrams. This method allows the encoding of topological objects by words in a finite alphabet. Part Five delves into virtual knot theory and virtualizations of knot and link invariants. This section includes the author's own important results regarding new invariants of virtual knots. The book concludes with an introduction to knots in 3-manifolds and Legendrian knots and links, including Chekanov's differential graded algebra (DGA) construction. Knot Theory is notable not only for its expert presentation of knot theory's state of the art but also for its accessibility. It is valuable as a professional reference and will serve equally well as a text for a course on knot theory.

Vassily Olegovich Manturov

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