Jones polynomial of a mirror 2026-10-14
Reflecting a link diagram interchanges its two bracket smoothings and negates its writhe of a link diagram. This replaces by in the normalized Kauffman bracket, hence by . A knot whose Jones polynomial differs from its reciprocal cannot be an amphichiral knot.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2026 iii Paper 112 2 c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
In fact the conclusion holds for every amphichiral knot; the hypothesis on the Arf invariant of a knot is unnecessary. Let be the two-fold branched cover of a knot. Amphichirality gives an orientation-reversing self-homeomorphism of , so its linking form of a branched cover satisfiesFix an odd prime and pass to the -primary subgroup. The standard filtration by powers of decomposes its linking form into nonsingular symmetric forms over . On a graded piece of dimension , an anti-isometry has a matrix satisfyingTaking determinants givesIf , then is not a square in , so every such is even. The sum of these graded dimensions is the exponentIt is therefore even, as required.