Explorations into Knot Theory: Colorability
Rex Butler, Aaron Cohen, Matt Dalton, Lars Louder,
Ryan Rettb erg, and Allen Whitt
July 25, 2001
Abstract
We explore prop erties of a generalized \coloring" of a knot including
existence, changes in regards to satellite knots and sp eci cally comp osi-
tion, non-colorable knots. We also explore homomorphisms from the knot
group to the dihedral group of a knot and provide computer programs de-
velop ed in our research of knots. We also provide a database and online
resource for future investigations into these arenas.
1 Intro duction
The idea of coloration probably has ro ots as far back as the idea of strands, since
it is but a simple extension of the idea. Since the trefoil knot is tricolorable,
undoubtedly it was this discovery that prompted the study of tricolorability
of other knots and as an invariant. Of course, it was not long after this that
a generalized idea of colorability was conco cted. This general colorability, or
n-Coloration, is the topic of this study.
Since the n-Coloration of a knot can be found using its crossing matrix,
it is relatively easy to calculate. This at rst might seem like a gold mine of
information on all knots, but colorability is not an invariant for all knots, as
we shall see. In fact, its distinguishing p ower is not comparable to anyofthe
other common invariants, but its usefulness lies in b oth its simplicity and its
ease of application. Also, as we shall see, the theory of n-Coloration yields some
interesting relations to existing theory concerning knots.
We rst provide some de nitions to help us maneuver in the language of
knots, colorations, and op erations on these:
De nition 1 A knot is a closed, one dimensional, and non-intersecting curve
in three dimensional space. From a more set-theoretic standpoint, a knot is a
homeomorphism that maps a circle into three dimensional space.
De nition 2 A homeomorphism is general ly consideredtobe an additive and
continuous function. Additive refers to the fol lowing property:
g A + B =g A+g B 1
Also, two objects are considered homeomorphic if there is a homeomorphism
between them.
De nition 3 An ambient isotopy,also known as an isotopy, is a continuous
deformation of a knot or link. This represents the \rubber-sheet geometry" as-
pect of topology, where the knot or link may bebent, twisted, stretched, or pul led.
Under no circumstances, however, may the curve be al lowed to intersect itself
or be cut.
De nition 4 Any group knots or links are considered ambiently isotopic or
isotopic if there exists an ambient isotopy between them. Such a group is cal led
an isotopic class. Al l members of an isotopic class, cal ledprojections, arecon-
sideredtobe the same knot or link.
De nition 5 An isotopic class is a group of knots or links that are ambiently
isotopic, or can be continuously deformed into each other. For example, the
unknot and gure-eight below belong to the same isotopic class because they can
be deformedintoeach other through a typeIReidemeister move.
De nition 6 A pro jection is a speci c member of an isotopic class. For exam-
ple, the unknot and gure-eight below aretwo di erent projections of the same
isotopic class.
De nition 7 The unknot, also known as the \trivial knot", is simply a circle
embeddedinthree-dimensional space with no crossings and al l other projections
of the same isotopic class. The circle and the gure-eight are both considered
De nition 8 A link is a group of knots or unknots embedded in three dimen-
sional space. Each knot or unknot embedded in the link is cal led a component.
A link with only one component is usual ly just referred to as a knot or unknot.
A link in which another member of the link's isotopic class has components
that can each be bounded with non-overlapping spheres, or otherwise separated
components, is cal led the trivial link.
De nition 9 Tricolorability deals with the ability to use three di erent "colors"
to color a knot. A knot is colored by individual strands, where a strand is the
part of a two-dimensional representation of a knot between undercrossings. A
knot is tricolorable if:
Rule 1: At every crossing, either al l threestrands are of a di erent color, or the
same color.
Rule 2: All threecolors areusedincoloring the knot. 2
2 Existence of Colorings
In this section it is shown that the existence of an `-coloration of a given pro jec-
tion of a knot implies the nonexistence of an `-coloration of any pro jection of
that knot up to Reidemeister moves I, I I, and I I I. Because anyambient isotopy
of a knot compliment space is equivalent to a series of Reidemeister moves and
planar isotopies of a given pro jection of the knot, existence of an `-coloration,
or `-colorability, is a knot invariant.
Given a pro jection of a knot to the plane, lab el its n strands a ;:::;a . Each
1 n
crossing then corresp onds to a linear expression given by: a + a 2a , where
i j k
a and a are the two understrands of the crossing and a is the overcrossing.
i j k
As each strand has exactly two ends, and each crossing has exactly two
understrands or ends, there are always n crossings for given n strands. Thus, a
given knot pro jection and a given lab elling of its n strands determines a so-called
'crossing matrix' of n n dimensions.
Imp ortant: Because a p ermutation of the lab elling corresp onds to a series of
column transp ositions, many imp ortant prop erties i.e. null space, determinant
of the matrix minors up to sign of the matrix are invariant of lab elling.
Tobe`-colorable, a crossing matrix of a pro jection must havea null space
of dimension two or greater when taken mo d `. This means that there is at
least one solution which is fundamentally di erent from the trivial coloration
a;:::;a.
Supp ose a pro jection is `-colorable:
Reidemeister Case 1
In the rst Reidemeister Case, a strand is given a single twist or a single twist
is untwisted. The expression for the crossing of a single twist is a + a 2a .
1 2 1
Whatever ` is, a must b e congruentto a , mo d `. Thus, if a pro jection con-
1 2
tains a single twist and is `-colorable, the two strands must indeed b e considered
as one, 'colorwise', and so a pair of strands which comp ose a single twist is equiv-
alent to a single strand in our coloration system. This shows that colorability
is invariantunderatyp e I Reidemeister move.
Reidemeister Case 2
For the second Reidemeister Case, a lo cal neighb orho o d of the pro jection con-
taining only two disjoint sections of strands which do not cross each other is
transformed such that the piece of the knot corresp onding to a strand a dips
1
underneath the piece of the knot corresp onding to a strand a . There are now
2
four strands a ;a ;a ;a = a see picture and two crossings which b oth
1 2 3 4 1
must satisfy the equation a + a 2a 0 mo d ` if n-colorability is to be
1 3 2
met. Since there is no other restriction on a as a is entirely within the lo cal
3 3
neighb orho o d, there is no p otential change in the rest of the pro jection if we
designate a =2a a . Because nothing is changed outside the lo cal section,
3 2 1 3
colorability is preserved. Conversely, supp ose wehave a lo cal section of a pro jec-
tion whichis`-colorable which contains three sections of strands with numbers
a ;a ;a and a single strand a , and two crossings, a + a 2a 0 mo d `
1 2 3 4 1 4 2
and a + a 2a 0 mo d `. Combining the two equations gives a 2a a
3 4 2 4 2 1
mo d ` a +2a a 2a a a 0 mo d `. Therefore a must be
3 2 1 2 3 1 1
congruentto a for the pro jection to b e `-colorable. If we transform this lo cal
3
section so that a is deleted and the sections with numbers a and a b ecome
4 1 3
one section of strand, the inverse of the Reidemeister move I I, we do not alter
anything outside the lo cal neighb orho o d, and so colorability is preserved under
the second Reidemeister Case.
Reidemeister Case 3
In the Reidemeister Case 3, there is a lo cal section of the pro jection with one
stationary intersection a + a 2a and three strands corresp onding to a section
1 3 2
of the knot passing 'underneath' the lo cal section. If the three strands a ;a ;a
4 5 6
pass on the side of the crossing suchthat a + a 2a 0 mo d ` and a + a
4 5 1 5 6
2a 0 mo d `, then 'shifting' to the other side should not change colorability,
2
0 0
i.e. a + a 2a 0 mo d ` and a + a 2a 0 mo d `. This is b ecause,
4 2 6 3
5 5
if wecombine b oth sets of equations such that the a 's are eliminated, we see
5
that a a +2a 2a a a +2a 2a mo d `, which implies
4 6 2 1 4 6 3 2
that a + a 2a 0 mo d `. So the side which a ;a ;a passes under see
1 3 2 4 5 6
picture is trivial i the stationary intersection is consistentwith `-colorability.
Thus colorability is preserved under a Reidemeister moveIII.
3 Op erations on Knots and Their Various Ef-
fects on Coloring
There exist various ways of constructing knots from preexisting ones. \Mu-
tating" a knot and forming satellite knots are two of the simplest. We are
interested in the coloration prop erties mo di ed knots have and their relation to
the coloration prop erties of their \parent" knots.
The easiest way to get a new knot from a pair of known knots is to comp ose
them. This is done by cutting eachofthe \factor" knots op en and attaching
the resulting lo ose strands in suchaway as to create a single knot.
Comp osition of knots can b e generalized in a waythatgives rise to the so-
called satellite knots. Given two knots, K and K , cho ose two tori, T , the
1 2 1
3
b oundary of an neig hbor hood of K and T ,suchthatK S T . Now
1 2 2 2
3
remove the comp onentof S T containing the knot and glue in its place the
1
3
p ortion of S T containing K such that the meridians and longitudes of
2 2
the T are mapp ed, resp ectively, to each other. K and K are known as the
i 1 2
companion and the satellite, resp ectively. A longitude on a torus emb edded in
3
S is simply a curve that forms the b oundary of an orientate surface in the
complementofsaidtorus. 4 A B
C D
Figure 1: A rational tangle.
A B B A
C D D
C
Figure 2: Aknotandamutant. These two are actually equivalent as knots to o!
A satellite of two knots is the same as their sum if the intersection K \ M of
2
K and some meridional disc M of T contains only one p oint. The comp osition
2 2
of K and K will b e denoted K K .
1 2 1 2
Mutating a knot is simpler than the formation of satellite knots. That
simplicity has its price though: if a knot can be p-colored, so can any of its
mutants.
A tangle is like a knot but, instead of being closed, has four points with
neighb orho o ds homeomorphic to [0; 1, the endp oints of the tangle corresp ond-
3
ing to p oints on the b oundary of a closed ball B S that contains the tangle.
See Figure 1.
Note that a subset of a knot can be a tangle. Simply try to surround a
p ortion of the knot by a sphere such that it is pierced by the knot exactly four
times. The p ortions of the knot \inside" and \outside" of such a sphere are
tangles. Referring to the gure, a mutant of a knot is a new knot obtained by
rotating the sphere, along with it's contents, 180 so that A and B, C and D,
are exchanged. 5 S' KKLL S''
S All one color
Figure 3: Coloring the sum of two knots.
Figure 4: A satellite knot with trefoil as companion and torus knot 2,5 as
satellite
Satellites
One prop erty K L has is that if K is p colorable and L is q colorable, then
K L is b oth p and q colorable. To p color the sum, simply color all of the
strands inherited from K as if coloring K . Supp ose the strand s of K was cut
in the pro cess of forming the sum. If it would have had color c, color the pieces,
0 00
s , s ,ofs, along with all the strands from L, c. See Figure 3. This suggests
the following hyp othesis: If a knot is prime, i.e. isn't the sum of two knots,
then it cannot b e colored in more than one way,formultiple colorings should
corresp ond to factor knots. Alas, this is not true, as will be demonstrated in
Section 4.
How do satellite knots behave under coloration? First, let's lo ok at an
example.
Example 1 Figure 4 shows a satel lite knot with trefoil as companion, and the
2,5 torus knot as satel lite. Watch where those longitudes and meridians go!
A simple but very time consuming, if done by hand! calculation reveals that
this knot is 5 col or abl e, like its satel lite. Note that it isn't 3 col or abl e, like
its companion, the trefoil.
When considering a satellite knot, it may b e of help to consider anyobvious
colorings it may p ossess. Setting K and T as ab ove, it is safe to assume that
i i
K sits in T as in Figure 5. Using this pro jection simpli es the construction
2 2
of the satellite knot. What happ ens when wemakethe satellite knot? If the 6
K
Figure 5: A satellite can sit in its torus like this.
B D A C
A D B
C
Figure 6: Kinoshita-Terasakamutants.
numb er of strands that wrap around T is o dd, we're in business: the satellite
2
knot is colorable as the companion is. The next picture indicates the situation
for satellites with three \strands."The principle generalizes easily. vspace.5cm
R R R B G G G B R R R B
G G G
If the numb er of strands is even we can't sayanything. Figure 4. shows that
satellite knots don't, in general, share colorabilities with their companions.
Mutants
Any mutant ofaknothas the same colorabilities its parent knot has. I hop e
the following example will induce the reader to nd out more.
Example 2 The two knots pictured in Figure 6 have the same colorabilities.
In fact, they can't even be distinguished from the unknot using coloration tech-
niques! 7
4 Multicolorability and Colorability of Higher
Nullities
From section 3 we learned that if the knot K is formed from the comp osition
of the knots K and K which are p and q colorable resp ectively, then K is
1 2
b oth p and q colorable. Thus any comp osite knot is at least bi-colorable if its
comp onents have di erent colorabilities. As we shall see below the converse
is not true. It is natural to ask whether there are any prime knots knots
which are not the sum of two other knots which are multicolorable? If the
comp onents of a knot b oth have the same colorability can anything be said
ab out the comp osite colorability? The de nition of `-colorability is that the
crossing matrix has nullity of at least twomodulo`, are there any knots which
have nullity three or higher? To answer these questions we will rst need to
clarify some de nitions and use our linear algebra skills.
Wesay the knot pro jection K ,with n crossings, is ` colorable if and only if
the crossing matrix C mo d ` has nullity where `; 2 N and 2. Well
K
this is the same thing as saying there exists distinct strands such that: to
each of those strands anyinteger from 0 to ` 1 can b e assigned to the strand
and there exist numb erings colorings of the other n strands which are
dep endent on the numb erings of the strands, but not necessarily uniquely
z x
dep endent such that at eachofthe n crossings: x + y 2 z mo d ` where x; y
tthenumb ers assigned to the understrands and z the numb er assigned
represen y
to the overstrand. See margin.
C is the n n matrix whose rows corresp ond to the equations x + y 2 z =0
K
for the n di erent crossings and the columns are the variables which corresp ond
to the n strands. Let the n 1 column vector v represent a coloration of the knot
th
pro jection, where the i comp onentofv is v and represents the coloring of the
i
th
i strand. In symb olic notation K is ` colorable ,9 2 9 distinct strands
i ;i ; ;i , such that 8 colorings q ;q ; ;q 2 Z , there is a coloration
1 2 1 2 `
n
~v 2 Z with those colorings 8 j 2f1; ; g v = q , such that ~v is a valid
i j
j
`
~
coloration mo dulo ` C ~v 0 mo d `. Thus there are at least ` di erent
K
`-colorations. For example the simplest case K is `-colorable with nullitytwo
n
~
then 9 i; j j i 6= j 8 q; p 2 Z 9 ~v 2 Z with v = qv = p and C ~v 0 mo d `
` i j K
`
Since there is no privileged frame of reference for the ordering of the strands
in the knot pro jection, the columns of the crossing matrix can be permuted
reordered without a ecting the colorability of the knot. Thus there exits an
n n permutation matrix P such that the distinct strands, whose colorings
can be chosen freely, corresp ond to the last columns of the matrix C P .
K
Using this new permuted crossing matrix we can nd linearly indep endent
coloration vectors v ;v ; ;v of K . These column vectors can be placed
1 2
in a n matrix V , where the columns of V are these coloration vectors.
The span of these vectors is in the mo dular null-space of C P ,however these
K
vectors are not necessarily a basis for the null-space, but if ` is a prime then
they are. Since any integral linear combination of valid colorations is a valid
~
coloration, we can let d be 1 vector that represents a linear combination 8
~
with integer comp onents, then the n 1 column vector V d is a valid coloration
of C P . Knowing that the colorings of the last strands can b e freely chosen
K
and a little linear algebra, we can require the vectors v ;v ; ;v to takeon
1 2
th
the form that the i vector's n i + 1 comp onent is one and all the comp onents
b eneath the one are zero. Thus there is a V of the form
1 0
? ? ? ? ? 1
......
C B
.
......
C B
.
......
C B
C B
? ? ? ? ? 1
C B
C B
1 0 0 0 0 1
C B
. . . .
C B
.
. . . . .
C B
.
. . . 0 1 .
C B
C B
.
.
C B
.
0 0 0 1 0 0
C B
C B
.
.
C B
.
0 0 1 0 0 1
C B
C B
.
.
C B
.
0 1 0 1 0 0
C B
C B
. .
.
. . . A @
.
. . 0 0 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 1
if =3 then V is of the form
0 1
? ? 1
B C
. . .
. . .
B C
. . .
B C
B C
? ? 1
V =
B C
B C
1 0 1
B C
@ A
0 1 1
0 0 1
and the simplest case if =2 then
0 1
? 1
B C
. .
. .
B C
. .
B C
V =
B C
? 1
B C
@ A
1 1
0 1
K is `-colorable with nullity 2 if and only if there exists a p ermu-
tation matrix P and a matrix V of the preceding form such that for all linear
n n n n
~ ~
~
combination vectors d 2 Z the congruence C n P n V d 1 0 1
K 1
`
mo d ` is satis ed.
Ok now that you have explicitly de ned colorability with nullity . How
do es one nd out if a knot is `-colorable, and what value the nullityof C takes
K
on mo dulo `? And once one knows that, how can one nd these vectors whose
span is in the mo dular null-space? Toanswer those questions we simply lo ok
at the Smith and Hermite normal forms of the crossing matrix C . So lets just
K
refresh our memories of what these forms are. 9
The Hermite normal form of a matrix A is an upp er triangular matrix H
with r ank A=thenumb er of nonzero rows of H . The Hermite normal form is
obtained by doing elementary row op erations on A. This includes interchanging
rows, multiplying through a rowby -1, and adding an integral multiple of one
row to another. The Smith normal form S , of an n m rectangular matrix
A of integers, is a diagonal matrix where r ank A= numb er of nonzero rows
r
Q
columns of S ; sig nS =18i; S divides S 8i rank A; and S
i;i i;i i+1;i+1 i;i
i=1
divides detM for all minors M of rank 0 n Q r ank A=n then jdetAj = S . The Smith normal form is obtained by i;i i=1 doing elementary row and column op erations on A. This includes interchanging rows columns, multiplying through a row column by -1, and adding integral multiples of one row column to another. Since the algorithm for the Hermite normal form do es not include column swapping, all of the colorabilities of K are not necessarily visible along the diagonal of the matrix H . In fact there exist crossing matrixes such that H mo dulo ` only has one row of zeros, despite the fact that H and C b oth have K nullitytwomodulo `. For example if take the following crossing matrix for 7 , 4 we attain the following Hermite form. 1 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 1 C B 1 1 0 0 0 2 0 C B C B 0 1 1 0 2 0 0 C B C B