A tabulation of ribbon knots in tangle form

Abstract

It is known that there are 21 ribbon knots with 10 crossings or fewer. We show that for every ribbon knot, there exists a tangle that satisfies two properties associated with the knot. First, under a specific closure, the closed tangle is equivalent to its corresponding knot. Second, under a different closure, the closed tangle is equivalent to the unlink. For each of these 21 ribbon knots, we present a 4-strand tangle that satisfies these properties. We provide diagrams of these tangles and also express them in planar diagram notation.