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Lipshitz-Sarkar refines mirrors more than Khovanov

Yang-Hui He

math.GTarXiv:2609.00976

Abstract

Lipshitz and Sarkar asked in an ICM 2018 question whether their homotopy-theoretic refinement of Khovanov homology can detect mirror reflection when ordinary integral Khovanov homology cannot. We give an affirmative answer by presenting a prime knot whose integral Khovanov homology agrees with that of its mirror in every bidegree, including torsion, and yet over F2, the second Steenrod square has rank one for the knot and rank zero for its mirror in a specified bidegree. We also give a composite example. The construction, search and computations are done with the help of chat-GTP 5.6 sol Pro combing over the Regina Census of knots.

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