Combinatorial approach to Milnor invariants of welded links

Abstract

For a classical link, Milnor defined a family of isotopy invariants, called Milnor $\overline{\mu}$-invariants. Recently, Chrisman extended Milnor $\overline{\mu}$-invariants to welded links by a topological approach. The aim of this paper is to show that Milnor $\overline{\mu}$-invariants can be extended to welded links by a combinatorial approach. The proof contains an alternative proof for the invariance of the original $\overline{\mu}$-invariants of classical links.