Braids, knots and contact structures

Joan S. Birman

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arXiv · math/0403489

Braids, knots and contact structures

Joan S. Birman

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Abstract

These notes were prepared to supplement the talk that I gave on Feb 19, 2004, at the First East Asian School of Knots and Related Topics, Seoul, South Korea. In this article I review aspects of the interconnections between braids, knots and contact structures on Euclidean 3-space. I discuss my recent work with William Menasco (arXiv math.GT/0310279)} and (arXiv math.GT/0310280). In the latter we prove that there are distinct transversal knot types in contact 3-space having the same topological knot type and the same Bennequin invariant.

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Joan S. Birman. 2004-03-28. Braids, knots and contact structures. https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0403489

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