Lagrangian Subspaces, Delta-Matroids, and Four-Term Relations

Abstract

Finite-order invariants (Vassiliev invariants) of knots are expressed in terms of weight systems, that is, functions on chord diagrams (embedded graphs with a single vertex) satisfying the four-term relations. Weight systems have graph analogues, the so-called 4-invariants of graphs, i.e., functions on graphs that satisfy the four-term relations for graphs. Each 4-invariant determines a weight system.

The notion of a weight system is naturally generalized to the case of embedded graphs with an arbitrary number of vertices. Such embedded graphs correspond to links; to each component of a link there corresponds a vertex of an embedded graph. Recently, two approaches have been suggested to extend the notion of 4-invariants of graphs to the case of combinatorial structures corresponding to embedded graphs with an arbitrary number of vertices. The first approach is due to V. Kleptsyn and E. Smirnov, who considered functions on Lagrangian subspaces in a 2n-dimensional space over F2 endowed with a standard symplectic form and introduced four-term relations for them. The second approach, due to V. Zhukov and S. Lando, gives four-term relations for functions on binary delta-matroids.

In this paper, these two approaches are proved to be equivalent.