The computation of higher order Alexander invariants

Abstract

In 1928, Alexander defined a sequence of knot polynomials, D_i(K). The first, D_1(K), is the classical Alexander polynomial. These are easily defined in terms of the homology of the infinite cyclic cover of the knot. In theory they can be computed by putting an associated Alexander matrix in Smith normal form. However, standard algorithms for computing the Smith form become impractically slow, even for some 16 crossing knots. Here, methods are developed that can effectively compute the Alexander polynomials of knots with up to 100 crossings.