The generalized cosmetic crossing conjecture for knots

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Let K⊂S3K\subset S^3 be a knot, and let cc be a crossing of KK. A crossing is nugatory if its crossing circle bounds a disk in the complement of KK; a generalized crossing change is a Dehn surgery operation along the crossing circle that changes the crossing by an arbitrary nonzero order. Generalized cosmetic crossing conjecture. If a generalized crossing change on cc yields a knot isotopic to KK, then cc is nugatory. This is a generalized form of the cosmetic crossing conjecture, which asks whether a non-nugatory crossing change can preserve the knot type. The source states that the corresponding cosmetic crossing question is open, and gives no resolution of this generalized formulation.

References

Primary source

Marion Campisi, Brandy Doleshal and Eric Staron, “The n-adjacency graph for knots”, arXiv:2603.08597 (2026).

Additional references

7 papers in this index state this conjecture (2015–2026). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:2410.15593, arXiv:2103.15277, arXiv:2102.09116, arXiv:1908.05701, arXiv:1603.09039, arXiv:1507.07996.

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