Academic Journal

Pointed racks and their applications to braid theory.

Bibliographic Details
Title: Pointed racks and their applications to braid theory.
Authors: Apollos, Angel1 (AUTHOR) aapoll2@lsu.edu, Ceniceros, Jose2 (AUTHOR) jcenicer@hamilton.edu
Source: Journal of Knot Theory & Its Ramifications. Aug2026, p1. 17p.
Subject Terms: *Braid group (Knot theory), *Representations of groups (Algebra), *Matrices (Mathematics), *Representation theory, *Knot theory
Abstract: We introduce a new algebraic structure called a pointed rack and use it to explicitly construct linear representations of the braid group Bn. By tracking the propagation of colorings through braid crossings, we define a rack counting matrix that acts as a set-theoretic permutation representation on the space of rack colorings. We prove that this matrix invariant not only recovers the classical rack coloring invariant of the braid’s closure but also captures strictly finer off-diagonal structural information of the braid. We demonstrate this by distinguishing braids whose closures have the same classical rack invariant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Database: Academic Search Index
Description
ISSN:02182165
DOI:10.1142/s0218216526500446