Australian Geometric Topology Webinar (AGTW)

AGTW Broadcast 

Date: Wednesday, 19 August 2026

Time: 12noon-1pm

Speaker: Keegan Boyle (New Mexico State University)

Place: SMRI Seminar Room (Macleay A12 Room 301)

Title: The myopic Tutte polynomial and link diagrammatics in RP^2

Abstract: We present a new strategy for proving the conjecture that the Jones polynomial 
detects the unknot, and provide some partial results in this direction. 
The key idea is to relate the Jones polynomial for null-homologous links in RP^3 with 
a diagrammatic quantity we call the local crossing number. To do so, we define and 
study a "myopic" version of the Tutte polynomial for graphs in RP^2, which we also use 
to prove that the Khovanov homology of alternating links in RP^3 is thin. 
This is forthcoming joint work with Dean Spyropoulos.