Steve Tedford

A Bound on the Size of Alternating Links

Abstract for the Combinatorics and Number Theory Seminar 2000 October 4, 11, 18

In 1972 Robert Riley proved that, for any given positive integers n and c, only a finite number of alternating links have an Alexander polynomial with degree n and constant term c. I will show that the number of crossings of such links is bounded and determine a bound. I will also exhibit examples for which this bound is achieved.