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We consider the expected value for the total curvature of a random closed polygon. Numerical experiments have suggested that as the number of edges becomes large, the difference between the expected total curvature of a random closed polygon and a random open polygon with the same number of turning angles approaches a positive constant. We show that this is true for a natural class of probability measures on polygons, and give a formula for the constant in terms of the moments of the edge-length distribution. We then consider the symmetric measure on closed polygons of fixed total length constructed by Cantarella, Deguchi, and Shonkwiler. For this measure, we are able to prove that the expected value of total curvature for a closed n-gon is exactly π/2 n + π/4 2n/2n-3 . As a consequence, we show that at least 1/3 of fixed-length hexagons and 1/11 of fixed-length heptagons in R3 are unknotted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an elementary derivation of the "intrinsic" symmetry groups for links of 8 or fewer crossings. We show that standard invariants are enough to rule out all potential symmetries outside the symmetry group of the group of the link for all but one of these links and present explicit isotopies generating the symmetry group for every link. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the "intrinsic" symmetry group of a two-component link L, defined to be the image Σ(L) of the natural homomorphism from the standard symmetry group MCG(S³; L) to the product MCG(S³) x MCG(L). This group, first defined by Whitten in 1969, records directly whether L is isotopic to a link L' obtained from L by permuting components or reversing orientations; it is a subgroup of Γ2, the group of all such operations. For two-component links, we catalog the 27 possible intrinsic symmetry groups, which represent the subgroups of Γ2 up to conjugacy. We are able to provide prime, nonsplit examples for 21 of these groups; some are classically known, some are new. We catalog the frequency at which each group appears among all 77,036 of the hyperbolic two-component links of 14 or fewer crossings in Thistlethwaite's table. We also provide some new information about symmetry groups of the 293 non-hyperbolic two-component links of 14 or fewer crossings in the table. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The helicity of a vector field is a measure of the average linking of pairs of integral curves of the field. Computed by a six-dimensional integral, it is widely useful in the physics of fluids. For a divergence-free field tangent to the boundary of a domain in 3-space, helicity is known to be invariant under volume-preserving diffeomorphisms of the domain that are homotopic to the identity. We give a new construction of helicity for closed -forms on a domain in -space that vanish when pulled back to the boundary of the domain. Our construction expresses helicity in terms of a cohomology class represented by the form when pulled back to the compactified configuration space of pairs of points in the domain. We show that our definition is equivalent to the standard one. We use our construction to give a new formula for computing helicity by a four-dimensional integral. We provide a Biot–Savart operator that computes a primitive for such forms; utilizing it, we obtain another formula for helicity. As a main result, we find a general formula for how much the value of helicity changes when the form is pushed forward by a diffeomorphism of the domain; it relies upon understanding the effect of the diffeomorphism on the homology of the domain and the de Rham cohomology class represented by the form. Our formula allows us to classify the helicity-preserving diffeomorphisms on a given domain, finding new helicity-preserving diffeomorphisms on the two-holed solid torus and proving that there are no new helicity-preserving diffeomorphisms on the standard solid torus. We conclude by defining helicities for forms on submanifolds of Euclidean space. In addition, we provide a detailed exposition of some standard ‘folk’ theorems about the cohomology of the boundary of domains in . [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We find bounds on the difference between the writhing numbers of a smooth curve and a polygonal curve inscribed within. The proof is based on an extension of Fuller's difference of writhe formula to the case of polygonal curves. The results establish error bounds useful in the numerical computation of writhe in terms of bounds on the edge lengths of the polygon and the derivatives of the curve. The bounds are "adaptive" in the sense that they improve when regions of the smooth curve with larger derivatives are approximated by shorter edges of the polygon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides bounds for the ropelength of a link in terms of the crossing numbers of its prime components. As in earlier papers, the bounds grow with the square of the crossing number; however, the constant involved is a substantial improvement on previous results. The proof depends essentially on writing links in terms of their arc-presentations, and has as a key ingredient Bae and Park''s theorem that an n-crossing link has an arc-presentation with less than or equal to n+2 arcs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The convex hull of a set K in space consists of points which are, in a certain sense, "surrounded" by K. When K is a closed curve, we define its higher hulls, consisting of points which are "multiply surrounded" by the curve. Our main theorem shows that if a curve is knotted then it has a nonempty second hull. This provides a new proof of the Fáry/Milnor theorem that every knotted curve has total curvature at least 4π. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We define a new class of knot energies (known as renormalization energies) and prove that a broad class of these energies are uniquely minimized by the round circle. Most of O'Hara's knot energies belong to this class. This proves two conjectures of O'Hara and of Freedman, He, and Wang. We also find energies not minimized by a round circle. The proof is based on a theorem of Lu¨ko˝ on average chord lengths of closed curves. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Examines the relationship between the calculus of vector fields and the topology of their domains of definition. Statement of the problem; Organization of the proof; Examples of vector fields; Proof of the Hodge decomposition theorem.