Extensions of the Tong-Yang-Ma representation

Abstract

In 1996, Tong, Yang and Ma defined a family of representations of the braid group which have the same dimensions as the (unreduced) Burau representations but are not equivalent. The Burau representation was defined homologically and extended to the string links in several ways. In this paper, using the method of Silver and Williams, we extend the family of the Tong-Yang-Ma representations to the string links and welded string links. Moreover, we show that the kernels of these representations may be described using some linking numbers. Finally, we apply the Long-Moody construction to the Tong-Yang-Ma representations and study its first properties.