Mathematical Research Letters

Volume 3, Issue 3, May 1996 pp. 405-417.

Finite type link invariants and the non-invertibility of links

Authors: Xiao-Song Lin
Author institution: University of California, Riverside

Summary: We show that a variation of Milnor's $\bar\mu$-invariants, the so-called Campbell-Hausdorff invariants introduced recently by Stefan Papadima, are of finite type with respect to {\it marked singular links}. These link invariants are stronger than quantum invariants in the sense that they detect easily the non-invertibility of links with more than one components. It is still open whether some effectively computable knot invariants, e.g.~ finite type knot invariants (Vassiliev invariants), could detect the non-invertibility of knots.

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