Strict growth conjecture for prime knot counts by crossing number

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Let nn be a positive integer. Let PP be a prime knot projection and KK a prime knot. Let c(P)c(P) be the number of double points of PP and c(K)c(K) the minimum number of crossings of KK. Define

Kn={K∣c(K)=n},Pn={P∣c(P)=n}.\mathcal{K}_n=\{K\mid c(K)=n\},\qquad \mathcal{P}_n=\{P\mid c(P)=n\}.

For a set SS, let ∣S∣|S| denote its cardinality.

Strict growth conjecture for prime knots. If 3<n<m3<n<m, then

∣Kn∣<∣Km∣.|\mathcal{K}_n|<|\mathcal{K}_m|.

This is identified in the source as a famous conjecture concerning the number of prime knots with a given crossing number. The same candidate span also records analogous assertions for prime knot projections and the inequality ∣Kn∣≤∣Pn∣|\mathcal{K}_n|\leq|\mathcal{P}_n|, but the first assertion is the explicitly attributed conjecture; its resolution is not indicated in the supplied text.

References

Primary source

Noboru Ito and Yusuke Takimura, “The tabulation of prime knot projections with their mirror images up to eight double points”, arXiv:2108.09698 (2021).

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