A New Invariant for Prime Alternating Knots From Error-Correcting Codes

Abstract

This paper shows that the Alexander-Briggs code of a knot gives rise to a new invariant that distinguishes prime alternating knots. The restriction to prime alternating knots precisely follows from the fact that our approach relies on Tait s flyping theorem. We also provide examples where the new invariant succeeds in separating knots that the well known invariants, such as some knot polynomials, fail.