Tight composites knots and chirality

Abstract

Chirality is known to play a central role in the properties of many physical systems across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Chemical and optical properties of materials are only two of the many examples where transformation properties under reflection symmetry become relevant in describing a real-world system: within this context, the word enantiomers is used to describe two different types of geometric shapes related by a reflection, called left-handed or right-handed enantiomers, in reference to the definition of chirality and handedness of screws presented by Maxwell in its treatise. In this short communication, the relation between chirality and the geometric shape of tight composite knots is discussed using arguments from the linear elastic theory of ropes. The results presented here serve as the starting point for a more general analysis, which we intend to pursue in future investigations.