Homology Invariants

Abstract

There have been few published results concerning the relationship between the homology groups of branched and unbranched covering spaces of knots, despite the fact that these invariants are such powerful invariants for distinguishing knot types and have long been recognised as such [8]. It is well known that a simple relationship exists between these homology groups for cyclic covering spaces (see Example 3 in § 3), however for more complicated covering spaces, little has previously been known about the homology group, H1(M) of the branched covering space or about H1(U), U being the corresponding unbranched covering space, or about the relationship between these two groups.