Symmetric Criticality for Tight Knots
  We prove a version of symmetric criticality for ropelength-critical knots. Our theorem implies that a knot or link with a symmetric representative has a ropelength-critical configuration with the same symmetry. We use this to construct new examples of ropelength critical configurations for knots and links which are different from the ropelength minima for these knot and link types. 
Jason Cantarella and Jennifer Ellis and Joseph H.G. Fu and Matt Mastin
math.DG math.GT