© | << < ? > >> | Dror Bar-Natan: Talks:

Meta-Groups, Meta-Bicrossed-Products, and the Alexander Polynomial

Knots in Washington XXXIV, March 14-16, 2012

Abstract. A straightforward proposal for a group-theoretic invariant of knots fails if one really means groups, but works once generalized to meta-groups (to be defined). We will construct one complicated but elementary meta-group as a meta-bicrossed-product (to be defined), and explain how the resulting invariant is a not-yet-understood generalization of the Alexander polynomial, while at the same time being a specialization of a somewhat-understood "universal finite type invariant of w-knots" and of an elusive "universal finite type invariant of v-knots".

Talk video. , Handout: beta.html, beta.pdf, beta.png. Sources: beta.zip, Pensieve / Program: 2012-03 / GWU_Talk.