Khovanov homology

In mathematics, Khovanov homology is an oriented link invariant that arises as the homology of a chain complex. It may be regarded as a categorification of the Jones polynomial.

It was developed in the late 1990s by Mikhail Khovanov, then at the University of California, Davis, now at Columbia University.

To any link diagram D representing a link L, we assign the Khovanov bracket [D], a chain complex of graded vector spaces. This is the analogue of the Kauffman bracket in the construction of the Jones polynomial. Next, we normalise [D] by a series of degree shifts (in the graded vector spaces) and height shifts (in the chain complex) to obtain a new chain complex C(D). The homology of this chain complex turns out to be an invariant of L, and its graded Euler characteristic is the Jones polynomial of L.

This definition follows the formalism given in Dror Bar-Natan's 2002 paper.

Let {l} denote the degree shift operation on graded vector spaces—that is, the homogeneous component in dimension m is shifted up to dimension m + l.

Similarly, let [s] denote the height shift operation on chain complexes—that is, the rth vector space or module in the complex is shifted along to the (r + s)th place, with all the differential maps being shifted accordingly.

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