Heegaard Floer Knot Homology

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In 2007, Jean-Marie Droz of the University of Zurich (working along with Anna Beliakova) wrote a Python program to compute the (hat-version) Heegaard-Floer Knot Homology ${\widehat {\operatorname {HFK} }}(K)$ of a knot $K$. His program is integrated into KnotTheory`, though to run it, you must have Python as well as the Python library Psycho installed on your system.

(For In[1] see Setup)

In[1]:= ?HFKHat HFKHat[K][t,m] returns the Poincare polynomial of the Heegaard-Floer Knot Homology (hat version) of the knot K, in the Alexander variable t and the Maslov variable m.

In[2]:= HFKHat::about The Heegaard-Floer Knot Homology program was written by Jean-Marie Droz in 2007 at the University of Zurich, based on methods of Anna Beliakova's arXiv:07050669.

8_19	in Arc Presentation

The Heegaard-Floer Knot Homology is a categorification of the Alexander polynomial. Let us test that for the knot 8_19:

In[3]:=	hfk = HFKHat[K = Knot[8, 19]][t, m]
Out[3]=	2 -3 m 5 2 6 3 m + t + -- + m t + m t 2 t

In[4]:=	{hfk /. m -> -1, Alexander[K][t]}
Out[4]=	-3 -2 2 3 -3 -2 2 3 {1 + t - t - t + t , 1 + t - t - t + t }

The knot 8_19 is the first knot in the Rolfsen Knot Table whose Heegaard-Floer Knot Homology is not "diagonal". Let us test that. The homology ${\widehat {\operatorname {HFK} }}(K)$ is "on diagonal", iff its Poincare polynomial, evaluated at $m=1/t$, is a monomial:

In[5]:=	Select[AllKnots[{3, 8}], (Head[HFKHat[#][t, 1/t]] == Plus) &]
Out[5]=	{Knot[8, 19]}

In[6]:=	hfk /. m -> 1/t
Out[6]=	4 -2 -- + t 3 t

K11n34

K11n42

The (mirrored) Conway knot K11n34 and the (mirrored) Kinoshita-Terasaka knot K11n42 are a mutant pair, and are notoriously difficult to tell apart. Let us check that an array of standard knot polynomials fails to separate them, yet ${\widehat {\operatorname {HFK} }}$ succeeds:

In[7]:=	K1 = Knot["K11n34"]; K2 = Knot["K11n42"]; test[invt_] := (invt[K1] =!= invt[K2]); test /@ { Alexander, MultivariableAlexander, Jones, HOMFLYPT, Kauffman, Kh, HFKHat }
Out[7]=	{False, False, False, False, False, False, True}

Indeed,

In[8]:=	{HFKHat[K1][t, m], HFKHat[K2][t, m]}
Out[8]=	2 1 1 3 3 3 3 {3 + - + ----- + ----- + ----- + ----- + ---- + --- + 3 t + 3 m t + m 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 m t m t m t m t m t m t 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 m t + 3 m t + m t + m t , 6 1 1 4 4 2 2 2 7 + - + ----- + ----- + ---- + --- + 4 t + 4 m t + m t + m t } m 3 2 2 2 2 m t m t m t m t

On July 6, 2006, User:AnonMoos asked User:Drorbn if he could identify the knot in the left hand side picture below. At the time it was impossible using the tools available with KnotTheory` (though of course, it was possible to do it "by hand"). The 2007 addition ${\widehat {\operatorname {HFK} }}$ does the job, though. Indeed, we first extract the mystery knot's DT (Dowker-Thistlethwaite) Code using the picture on the right hand side below, then compute ${\widehat {\operatorname {HFK} }}$, and then search for it with the ${\widehat {\operatorname {HFK} }}$'s of all knots with up to 11 crossings:

And so the mystery knot is the Conway knot, the mirror of K11n34.