Intrinsic linking and knotting in tournaments

Abstract

A directed graph [Formula: see text] is intrinsically linked if every embedding of that graph contains a nonsplit link [Formula: see text], where each component of [Formula: see text] is a consistently oriented cycle in [Formula: see text]. A tournament is a directed graph where each pair of vertices is connected by exactly one directed edge. We consider intrinsic linking and knotting in tournaments, and study the minimum number of vertices required for a tournament to have various intrinsic linking or knotting properties. We produce the following bounds: intrinsically linked ([Formula: see text]), intrinsically knotted ([Formula: see text]), intrinsically 3-linked ([Formula: see text]), intrinsically 4-linked ([Formula: see text]), intrinsically 5-linked ([Formula: see text]), intrinsically [Formula: see text]-linked ([Formula: see text]), intrinsically linked with knotted components ([Formula: see text]), and the disjoint linking property ([Formula: see text]). We also introduce the consistency gap, which measures the difference in the order of a graph required for intrinsic [Formula: see text]-linking in tournaments versus undirected graphs. We conjecture the consistency gap to be nondecreasing in [Formula: see text], and provide an upper bound at each [Formula: see text].