A NOTE ON THE CROSSING NUMBER AND THE BRAID INDEX FOR VIRTUAL LINKS.

It is well known that any virtual link is described as the closure of a virtual braid. Therefore, we can define the virtual braid index. Ohyama proved an inequality for the crossing number and the braid index of a classical link. In this paper, we prove an analogous inequality for the (total) crossing number and the braid index of a virtual link. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]