Linking numbers for periodic tangles

Abstract

Periodic tangles are 1-dimensional submanifolds in the 3-space with translational symmetry. In this paper, we define the linking numbers for singly, doubly, and triply periodic tangles using appropriate motifs and show that they are well-defined and invariant under link-homotopy. Furthermore, we extend the notion to the higher order linking numbers for singly periodic tangles.

14 pages, 8 figures