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Arc-presentations of links. Monotonic simplification

Ivan Dynnikov
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Abstract

We prove that any arc-presentation of the unknot admits a monotonic simplification by elementary moves; this yields a simple algorithm for recognizing the unknot. We obtain similar results for split links and composite links.

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Ivan Dynnikov. 2004-07-16. Arc-presentations of links. Monotonic simplification. https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0208153

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