A Tabulation of Ribbon Knots in Tangle Form

Andrey Boris Khesin

Published 2017-05-29Version 1

It is known that there are 21 ribbon knots with 10 crossings or fewer. We show that for every ribbon knot, there exists a tangle that satisfies two properties associated with the knot. First, under a specific closure, the closed tangle is equivalent to its corresponding knot. Second, under a different closure, the closed tangle is equivalent to the unlink. For each of the first 21 ribbon knots, we present a 4-strand tangle that satisfies these properties. We provide diagrams of these tangles and also express them in planar diagram notation.