The Kauffman brackets for equivalence classes of links

Abstract

It is well known that there is a one-to-one correspondence between link diagrams and signed plane graphs. In this paper, we define an equivalence relation on the set of link diagrams according to the reductions of their corresponding signed plane graphs. For all members of each equivalence class (with infinite number of members), we can compute their Kauffman bracket polynomials in a unified way. As an example, we deal with the links whose reductions of their corresponding signed plane graphs have small cyclomatic numbers. Furthermore, applying computer algebra (MAPLE) techniques, we calculate the Kauffman bracket polynomials of a set of links in a specified equivalence class. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.