# Legendrian links of topological unknots

## Abstract

We use an estimate on the Thurston–Bennequin invariant of a Legendrian link in terms of its Kauffman–polynomial to show that links of topological unknots, e.g. the Borromean rings or the Whithead link, may not be represented by Legendrian links of Legendrian unknots.

In  Eliashberg classified all Legendre knots representing the unknot in terms of their Thurston–Bennequin number, $`tb`$, and their rotation, $`r`$. Bennequin’s inequality in these cases reads as

$$tb+|r|1.$$

Thus the Legendre knot given by the wavefront of the ’eye’ which has $`tb=1,r=0`$ is referred to as the trivial Legendrian knot.

Back then there was no other obvious obstruction for Legendrian links consisting of (topological) unknots and Eliashberg asked the question: ”Given a link of topological unknots, can it be realized as a link of \[…\] Legendrian unknots?”

The answer is negative in general and the new obstructions are given by a sharper inequality on the Thurston–Bennequin number governed by the Kauffman polynomial $`K(x,t)`$ which was found by Lee Rudolph in  (for further reference see e.g.  and ). It simply states that the Thurston–Bennequin number is not bigger than the the minimal degree in the variable $`x`$ of the Kauffman polynomial:

$$tb\mathrm{max}\text{-}\mathrm{deg}_xK.$$

The contribution of the author is to apply this to links of topological unknots. We had to be careful because the two groups of authors  used different Kauffman polynomials and thus obtain slightly different inequalities: here we work with the Dubrovnik–version Chmutov and Goryunov used. Let us first recall the definition of the Thurston–Bennequin number:

###### Definition 1

Let $`L`$ be an oriented Legendrian link given by a wave front projection. Then the Thurston–Bennequin number of $`L`$, $`tb(L)`$, is the number of sideward crossings minus the number of up– or downward crossings minus half the number of cusps.

From that the following observation is immediate

###### Lemma 2

Let $`L=_iL_i`$ be a Legendrian link with pairwise unlinked components $`L_i`$. Then the Thurston–Bennequin number of that link is simply given by the sum of those of the components

$$tb(L)=\underset{i}{}tb(L_i).$$

In particular, it does not depend on the orientation of the components.

To investigate Eliashberg’s question we took the most simplest examples we knew: The Borromean rings $`B`$ and the Whitehead link $`W`$. The Kauffman polynomials are given by

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill K_W(x,y)& =yx^52x^4(2y^3+6y)x^3+(y^4y^2+6+y^2)x^2+(3y^3+9y+2y^1)x\hfill \\ & +(y^4+y^252y^2)(y^3+4y2y^1)x^1+(2+y^2)x^2\hfill \end{array}$$

and

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill K_B(x,t)& =y^2x^4+(4y+y^3)x^3+(3y^410y^2+3y^2)x^2\hfill \\ & +(2y^52y^3+14y+3y^13y^3)x+(6y^4+18y^2+16y^2)\hfill \\ & (2y^52y^3+14y+3y^13y^3)x^1+(3y^410y^2+3y^2)x^2\hfill \\ & (4y+y^3)x^3+y^2x^4.\hfill \end{array}$$

From that we easily deduce the main result of that note

###### Proposition 3

(1) For any Legendrian representaion of the Borromean rings we have

$$tb4.$$

(2) For any Legendrian representation of the Whitehaed link we have

$$tb5.$$

Thus for both not all components may be Legendrian unknots.

###### Remark 4

(1) In the cases of the Borromean rings and the Whitehead link the inequality is sharp as the following pictures show.   
(2) In the case of the Whitehead link the Kauffman polynomial gives no further obstruction for its mirror. Indeed it can be represented as a Legendrian link of Legendrian unknots.

On the other hand it is possible to give two different Legendrian Whithead links with $`tb=5`$. One consists of components with Thurston–Bennequin numbers $`4`$ and $`1`$ the other with $`3`$ and $`2`$.

###### Questions 5

(1) Are there sharper bounds on the Thurston–Bennequin number than that given in ?   
(2) Are there sharper bounds if one imposes additional conditions? E.g. consider Brunnian links, i.e. links of unknots which fall appart if one removes one component.   
(3) Is it at least true that a link of the type described in (2) may be represented as a Legendrian link consisting of Legendrian unknots iff the maximal degree in $`x`$ of its Kauffman polynomial is equal to the number of components of the link (note that this degree is never less than the number of components)?   
(4) Are there further restrictions for the distribution of the Thurston–Bennequin number on the components of a Legendrian link?

Acknowledgements. I would like to thank Uwe Kaiser and Alexander Pilz for patiently checking my computations. I apologize to Lee Rudolph for wrongly stating the reference for the inequality used in this note in the first version and thank him for correcting me.