Fundamental $n$-quandles of links are residually finite

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the residual finiteness and subquandle separability of quandles, properties that respectively imply the solvability of the word problem and the generalized word problem for quandles. From Winker's work, we know that fundamental $n$-quandles of oriented links, which are canonical quotients of their fundamental quandles, are closely associated with $n$-fold cyclic branched covers of the 3-sphere branched over these links. We prove that the fundamental $n$-quandle of any oriented link in the 3-sphere is residually finite for each $n\ge 2$. This supplements the recent result by Bardakov, Singh and the third author on residual finiteness of fundamental quandles of oriented links, and the classification by Hoste and Shanahan of links whose fundamental $n$-quandles are finite for some $n$. We also establish several general results on these finiteness properties and identify many families of quandles admitting them.