Space-Efficient Prime Knot 7-Mosaics

Abstract

The concepts of tile number and space-efficiency for knot mosaics were first explored by Heap and Knowles in 2018, where they determined the possible tile numbers and space-efficient layouts for every prime knot with mosaic number 6 or less. In this paper, we extend those results to prime knots with mosaic number 7. Specifically, we find the possible values for the number of non-blank tiles used in a space-efficient 7 × 7 mosaic of a prime knot are 27, 29, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 39, and 41. We also provide the possible layouts for the mosaics that lead to these values. Finally, we determine which prime knots can be placed within the first of these layouts, resulting in a list of knots with mosaic number 7 and tile number 27.