Birack shadow modules and their link invariants

Sam Nelson, Katie Pelland

Published 2011-06-01Version 1

We introduce an associative algebra Z[X,S] associated to a birack shadow and define enhancements of the birack counting invariant for classical knots and links via representations of Z[X,S] known as shadow modules. We provide examples which demonstrate that the shadow module enhanced invariants are not determined by the Alexander polynomial or the unenhanced birack counting invariants.