We show that the map on components from the space of classical long knots to the
stage of its Goodwillie–Weiss embedding calculus tower is a map of
monoids whose target is an abelian group and which is invariant under
clasper surgery. We deduce that this map on components is a finite
type- knot invariant.
We compute the
–page
in total degree zero for the spectral sequence converging to the components of this tower: it consists
of
–modules
of primitive chord diagrams, providing evidence for the conjecture that the tower is a
universal finite-type invariant over the integers. Key to these results is the
development of a group structure on the tower compatible with connected sum of
knots, which in contrast with the corresponding results for the (weaker) homology
tower requires novel techniques involving operad actions, evaluation maps and
cosimplicial and subcubical diagrams.
Keywords
finite-type knot invariants, calculus of functors,
embedding calculus, Taylor tower for the space of knots,
configuration spaces, mapping space models, evaluation
maps, stacking long knots, cosimplicial spaces, spectral
sequences