A New Way to Tabulate Knots

Abstract

We introduce a new way to tabulate knots by representing knot diagrams using a pair of planar trees. This pair of trees have their edges labeled by integers, they have no valence 2 vertices, and they have the same number of valence 1 vertices. The number of valence 1 vertices of the trees is called the girth of the knot diagram. The classification problem of knots admitting girth 2 and 3 diagrams is studied. The planar tree pair representations of girth less than 4 for knot diagrams in Rolfsen's table are given.

17 pages, 6 figures