Tutte Polynomials of Signed Graphs and Jones Polynomials of Some Large Knots

Tutte Polynomials of Tensor Products of Signed Graphs and Their Applications in Knot Theory

It is well-known that the Jones polynomial of an alternating knot is closely related to the Tutte polynomial of a special graph obtained from a regular projection of the knot. Relying on the results of Bollobás and Riordan, we introduce a generalization of Kauffman’s Tutte polynomial of signed graphs for which describing the effect of taking a signed tensor product of signed graphs is very simp...

Tutte Polynomials of Flower Graphs

Zeros of Jones Polynomials for Families of Knots and Links

We calculate Jones polynomials VL(t) for several families of alternating knots and links by computing the Tutte polynomials T (G, x, y) for the associated graphs G and then obtaining VL(t) as a special case of the Tutte polynomial. For each of these families we determine the zeros of the Jones polynomial, including the accumulation set in the limit of infinitely many crossings. A discussion is ...

Colored Tutte Polynomials and Kauuman Brackets for Graphs of Bounded Tree Width

Jones polynomials and Kauuman polynomials are the most prominent invariants of knot theory. For alternating links, they are easily computable from the Tutte polynomials by a result of Thistlethwaite (1988), but in general one needs colored Tutte polynomials, as introduced by Bollobas and Riordan (1999). Knots and links can be presented as labeled planar graphs. The tree width of a link L is dee...

A Tutte-style proof of Brylawski's tensor product formula

We provide a new proof of Brylawski’s formula for the Tutte polynomial of the tensor product of two matroids. Our proof involves extending Tutte’s formula, expressing the Tutte polynomial using a calculus of activities, to all polynomials involved in Brylawski’s formula. The approach presented here may be used to show a signed generalization of Brylawski’s formula, which may be used to compute ...