Homotopy Brunnian links and the $\kappa$-invariant

Abstract

We provide an alternative proof that Koschorke's $\kappa$-invariant is injective on the set of link homotopy classes of $n$-component homotopy Brunnian links $BLM(n)$. The existing proof (by Koschorke \cite{Koschorke97}) is based on the Pontryagin--Thom theory of framed cobordisms, whereas ours is closer in spirit to techniques based on Habegger and Lin's string links. We frame the result in the language of Fox's torus homotopy groups and the rational homotopy Lie algebra of the configuration space $\text{Conf}(n)$ of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^3$. It allows us to express the relevant Milnor's $\mu$--invariants as homotopy periods of $\text{Conf}(n)$.