KHOVANOV HOMOLOGY

OSAMA GHANI

1. Introduction

1.1. Motivation. The classification of knots and links has been an open prob-
lem in low dimensional topology since the inception of the field. Initial attempts
to classify knots via crossing numbers, writhes and colourings are reminiscent of
the geometric ways in which early attempts to classify manifolds involved de-
gree, intersection numbers and Euler characteristic. For manifolds, we know that
we
Pn can recover the Euler characteristic from integral homology, via χ(X n ) =
n+1
i=0 (−1) dimHi (X n , Z). Knot polynomials such as the Jones polynomial and
Alexander polynomial have also arisen from geometric considerations of links. In
a similar vein, Khovanov homology as emerged as a theory whose graded Euler
characteristic recovers the (unnormalized) Jones polynomial.

1.2. Road Map. This paper has the goal of giving the reader an example of how
to compute the Khovanov homology of links from their diagrams. To do this, we
will follow these steps.
(1) Explore the relevant category for the study of this functor.
(2) Understand what it means to be a link invariant.
(3) Give the state-sum formulation of the Jones polynomial, a precursor of sorts
to Khovanov homology.
(4) Understand the chain groups (actually Q-vector spaces, and understand
operations on these groups and on chain complexes.
(5) Explore the differential in the complex.
(6) Calculate the homology of the Hopf link.
(7) Briefly summarize the functoriality of Khovanov homology.
We begin with the first point.

2. Link Preliminaries

2.1. Category of Links and Cobordisms. For a homology theory, we need a

category to study links in. The objects are obviously links, but the the question
arises as what to consider as morphisms. Recall that two links, K1 , K2 are con-
sidered equivalent if they are ambient isotopic in S 3 i.e. if there exists a map
H : S 3 × [0, 1] → S 3 such that H0 is the identity, Ht is a homeomorphism for all t,
and H1 (K1 ) = K2 . Intuitively, this is a deformation of S 3 that deforms K1 to K2 .
1
2 OSAMA GHANI

Perhaps one would like to consider the category of links and ambient isotopies, but
a functor from such a category would not give any relation between inequivalent
links, since there would be no morphisms between them. We develop a coarser
relation on links called cobordism. Two links are called cobordant if there is a com-
pact oriented manifold with boundary in S 3 × [0, 1] such that the boundary is the
difference of the two knots (taken with orientations). Note that an ambient isotopy
automatically gives a cobordism. To see this, note that Ht (K1 ) gives an isotopy
from K1 to K2 . Now let S = {Ht (x), t|t ∈ [0, 1], x ∈ K0 }. This sits in S 3 × [0, 1]
and is a cylinder whose boundary is K1 ∪ K2 . So this gives a cobordism. Now, we
call this category Links, and the category of vector spaces Vect. We assert that
Khovanov homology is a functor
Kh : Links → Vect

2.2. Reidemeister Moves. In 1927, Reidemeister, Alexander and Briggs demon-

strated that links were ambient isotopic if and only if their link diagrams were
related by a series of moves called Reidemeister Moves. Thus, a mathematical ob-
ject associated a link diagram is a link invariant if it is invariant under Reidemeister
moves. There are 3 moves, which are illustrated below. It is true that Khovanov
homology and the Jones polynomial are invariant under these moves, so it is a bona
fide link invariant. However, showing this takes some work, so we will proceed with
the assumption that we know that these are link invariants.

3. The Jones Polynomial

The Jones polynomial is a link invariant. Given a link diagram, the Jones polyno-
mial can be calculated using the Kaufmann bracket. The rules are
(1) hOi = 1

(2) 2.png

(3) 3.png
These can be used to recursively solve for the Jones polynomial. However, for
the purposes of motivating Khovanov homology, we will present a more direct al-
gorithm. Let us choose a link diagram L. Let χ be the number of crossings in
the diagram. We number the crossings going along the diagram. A smoothing
is a modification at a crossing as followings.The 0-smoothing corresponds to
and the 1-smoothing corresponds to . Now, we consider the n-dimensional cube
{0, 1}χ . Note that each corner of the cube corresponds to a different smoothing, and
 KHOVANOV HOMOLOGY 3

smoothings result in a number of disjoint cycles. Let us represent each corner by a

code, like 000 for the vertex at the origin. Now the height of a smoothing is the sum
of the digits of the code. To each corner, we associate the term (−1)r q r (q + q −1 )k
where r is the height and k is the number of cycles in the smoothing. We sum
these terms over all corners. Finally, we left n+ be the number of right-handed
crossings and nl be the number of left-handed crossings. We multiply the result by
(−1)n− q n+ −2n− . We illustrate the process for a Hopf link below. When drawing
the cube as below, note that edges exist only between codes which differ at one
point. We can actually consider this as a category of cubes with objects being the
vertices and morphisms being edges, but this won’t be necessary.

4. Chain Groups

Khovanov homology is motivated by replacing polynomials by vector spaces, and

powers of some terms by tensor powers. Moreover, we replace a polynomial by a
homology theory whose graded Euler characteristic returns that polynomial. This
is an example of categorification. The following definitions will help make clear how
the final definition arises.

L
4.1. Graded Vector Space and Quantum Dimension. Suppose W = m Wm
is a graded vector space. We call Wm the homogeneous components
P of this vector
space. We then define the quantum dimension of W , qdim = W = m q m dimWm .

4.2. Degree Shift. This is an operation on graded vector spaces. We denote

shifting W by l as W {l}. We set W {l}m = Wm−l . This effectively raises the grading
on each homogeneous component by l, so that qdimW {l} = q l qdimW .
4 OSAMA GHANI

4.3. Height Shift. Let C be a chain complex . . . → C r → C r+1 → . . .. C[s]

is the chain complex where the chain groups are moved up by s dimensions i.e.
(C[s])r = C r−s .

With these definitions, we will aim to assign a free abelian group to each smooth-
ing. Let V = Q[1, x]. Then let deg(1) = 1 and deg(x) = −1. We now have
qdimV = q + q −1 .

Claim: qdimV ⊗k = (q + q −1 )k .
Proof: This follows easily from showing that qdim(V ⊗ W ) = qdim(V )qdim(W ).
To see this, let Vi , 1 ≤ i ≤ m be the homogeneous components of V and similarly
let Wj , 1 ≤ j ≤ n be the homogeneous components of W . Note that
m M
M n
V ⊗ W = (V1 ⊕ . . . ⊕ Vm ) ⊗ (W1 ⊕ . . . ⊕ Wm ) = Vi ⊗ Wj
i=1 j=1

Note that this shows that Vi ⊗ Wj are homogeneous components of the tensor
product. Now we have
m X
X n m X
X n
qdim(V ⊗ W ) = q i+j dim(Vi ⊗ Wj ) = q i dim(Vi )q j dim(Wj )
i=1 j=1 i=1 j=1

= qdim(V )qdim(W )

So, this provides a good building block for recovering powers of q + q −1 in the Euler
characteristic of this homology theory. Now, for each edge α, we associate the vec-
tor space Vα = V ⊗k {r +n+ −2n− }. Recalling our code for each corner that we used
in the Jones polynomial, we let C̃ i,∗ = Vα where the height of component is i (recall
that this is the sum of the digits in the code). Note that we have a bigrading in the
chain groups. One is homological (given by i), and one is quantum (arising from the
internal grading of the vector spaces). Lastly, we will shift the homological dimen-
sion to get the final chain groups. We let C i,∗ = C̃ i,∗ [−n− ]. We will now try to show
that this indeed forms a chain (co)complex, and hence we can take its homology and
get an invariant. We explicitly construct the chain complex for the Hopf link below.
 KHOVANOV HOMOLOGY 5

5. The Differential

Recall that we denote the height of a vector space in the complex by r, the number
of cycles in a smoothing by k, the number of right-handed crossings in the original
knot by n+ and the number of left-handed crossings by n− . The homological
grading i is given by i = r − n− . The quantum grading of an element v is given
by j = deg(v) + i + n+ − n− . With these numbers, we will be able to define the
differential.

We note that two vertices in the cube are connected if and only if they differ by one
number. In the diagrams above, we have always drawn the edges with a direction.
In fact, these arrows are the differential maps. Before we define them, we give some
notation. Suppose an edge connects 100 and 111. This edge will be denoted by
d1∗1 where the asterisk takes the spot of the number that changes. Note that in
the assignment of chain groups, we took a tensor product of the number of cycles.
If we follow an edge, we either have a merge of two cycles into one or a split of one
cycle into two. We note that outside of a small neighbourhood of the merging or
splitting area, smoothings connected by an edge are identical. In particular, if a
cycle doesn’t take part in a merge or split, it is unaffected. So for each smoothing,
we let the differential be the identity on copies of V not affected.
In case of a merge, we define

m : V ⊗ V → V : m(1 ⊗ 1) = 1, m(1 ⊗ x) = m(x ⊗ 1) = x, m(x ⊗ x) = 0

In the case of a split, we define a coproduct

∆ : V → V ⊗ V : ∆(1) = 1 ⊗ x + x ⊗ 1, ∆(x) = x ⊗ x

. We do this for each arrow emanating out of a smoothing α, with associated vector
space Vα . Now for v ∈ Vα ⊂ C i,∗ , we define

X
di (v) = (−1)sgn(ζ) dζ (v)
ζ

where ζ indexes all the arrows emanating from Vα , sgn(ζ) is −1 raised to the num-
ber of 1’s to the left of ∗ in the code of Vα and dζ is the differential associated with
the arrow.

With this, we can compute the homology by calculating images and kernels. How-
ever, instead of ”flattening” entirely to a one-dimensional complex and forgetting
about any information from the bigrading, we will retain information by identi-
fying the q-grading of the homology classes we get. Thus, we present the Kho-
vanov homology of a link in the form of an array, indexed by homological grading
and quantum grading. We now compute the homology for the Hopf link below.
6 OSAMA GHANI

We note that {1 ⊗ 1, 1 ⊗ x, x ⊗ 1, x ⊗ x} is a basis for C −2 . We note

v d−2 (v)
1⊗1 1
1⊗x x
x⊗1 x
x⊗x 0

So we see that the kernel is generated by {x ⊗ x, 1 ⊗ x − x ⊗ 1}. Note that these have
q-gradings equal to −6 and −4 respectively. Thus on the array, we will enter a Q
in these positions. We note that im(d−2 ) is generated by {(1, 1), (x, x)}. Similarly
we have

v d−1 (v)
(1, 0) −1 ⊗ x − x ⊗ 1
(x, 0) −x ⊗ x
(0, 1) 1 ⊗ x + x ⊗ 1
(0, x) x⊗x

Now note that the kernel is generated by {(1, 1), (x, x)}. So in homological grading
−1, we have that the homology is trivial because the ker(d−1 ) = im(d−2 ).
Now we know that d−1 is the trivial map. So the kernel is everything mod {x ⊗
x, 1 ⊗ x + x ⊗ 1}. Note that the basis of C 0 is {1 ⊗ 1, 1 ⊗ x, x ⊗ 1, x ⊗ x}. Modding
out by x ⊗ x gets rid of it from the basis, and the second relation says that x ⊗
1 = −1 ⊗ x. So we have the the quotient space is generated by {1 ⊗ 1, 1 ⊗ x}.
These have q-gradings 0 and −2 respectively. We summarize our results below.
 KHOVANOV HOMOLOGY 7

6. Cobordism and Functoriality

So far, we have shown how to construct the Khovanov complex of a link. However,
for this to be functorial, we need to display linear maps between the complexes
induced by cobordisms of links. We revisit the diagrams of smoothings and show
that the arrows between smoothings of knots can actually be realized as cobor-
disms. Thus, the arrows of the diagram are actually morphisms in Links.
To see this, note that in the previous section, we noted that aside from a small
neighbourhood around the merge/split, the link diagrams remain unchanged. We
use a pair of pants cobordism (pictured below) to merge or split these cycles. The
rest of the cycles remain untouched. Hence the cobordism consists of the union of
disjoint cylinders and a pair of pants.

We have already seen how to associate a linear map with a pair of pants cobordism.
The question arises how to construct linear maps based off of arbitrary cobordisms.
We will not develop the general method here, but we will exposit the idea. Taking
”cross-sections” of the cobordism surface yields link diagrams as we have been using
so far. By carefully choosing the ”times” at which we take the cross-sections, we
get a series of diagrams that, similar to above, differ via merges and splits. We
define the linear maps the same way. It would be useful to consider an alternative
definition of cobordism between links K1 and K2 , namely, a one parameter family
link diagrams, in which at all but finitely many times, we have isotopies between
the link diagrams, and at the finite points, we have a ”change” in the topology of
the surface. This is often called a movie. By ”playing” the movie, we can observe
merges and splits which help define the linear maps involved.

7. Strength of Khovanov Homology

Khovanov homology was motivated by categorifying the Jones polynomial, in a

similar way that homology categorified the Euler characteristic and Betti numbers.
As any algebraic topologist is aware, homology is a much stronger (and strictly
stronger) invariant than the Euler characteristic. We provide strengths of Khovanov
homology below:
(1) Khovanov homology is a strictly stronger invariant than the Jones polyno-
mial. For example, the knots 51 and 101 32 have the same Jones polynomial
but different Khovanov homology.
8 OSAMA GHANI

(2) For Legendrian knots, the Khovanov homology can provide bounds on the
Thurston-Bennequin number. This bound is sharp (i.e. the best upper
bound) for alternating knots.
(3) Khovanov homology is better at detecting knots from their mirror images
than the Jones polynomial. Kh detects that 942 6= 942 .
(4) It is easily computable by computer algorithms. There are packages in
Mathematica that can calculate them.
So we see that Khovanov homology is useful in applications. However, a drawback
to using it is that it depends heavily on link diagrams, and for the most part,
only works for knots embedded in S 3 . Studying knots in other manifolds is an
interesting subject, and thus Khovanov homology is not a readily adaptable tool to
those situations.

References
[1] Bar-Natan, Dror. On Khovanov’s Categorification of the Jones Polynomial. Algebraic
Geometric Topology, vol. 2, pp. 337-370
[2] Turner, Paul. Five Lectures on Khovanov Homology. arXiv:math/0606464v1 [math.GT] 19
Jun 2006