Implementation of the Habegger--Lin decision algorithm

Abstract

Habegger and Lin gave a classification of link-homotopy classes of links in terms of that of string links modulo certain group actions. As an application, they constructed an algorithm for determining whether given two links are link-homotopic. In \cite{KM4}, we explicitly computed these group actions for the 4- and 5-component cases. Consequently, the Habegger--Lin algorithm can be effectively applied in these cases. In this paper, we present an implementation of this algorithm, which is available at \cite{KMcode}, and exhibit new pairs of links that are not link-homotopic yet cannot be distinguished by Milnor's link-homotopy invariants, called $\overlineμ$-invariants.