Background
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Recall that a (oriented) *knot* is a smoothly embedded circle $S^1$ in $\mathbb R^3$, up to some natural equivalence relation (which is not quite trivial to write down). The collection of oriented knots has a binary operation called *connected sum*: if $K\_1,K\_2$ are knots, then $K\_1 \# K\_2$ is formed by spatially separating the knots, then connecting them by a very thin rectangle, which is glued on so that all the orientations are correct. Connect sum is commutative and associative, making the space of knots into a commutative monoid. In fact, [by a theorem of Schubert](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_knot), this is the free commutative monoid on countably many generators. A ($\mathbb C$-valued) *knot invariant* is a $\mathbb C$-valued function on this monoid; under "pointwise" multiplication, the space of knot invariants is a commutative algebra $I$, and $\#$ makes $I$ into a cocommutative bialgebra. I.e. $I$ is a commutative monoid object in $(\text{CAlg})^{\rm{op}}$, where $\text{CAlg}$ is the category of commutative algebras.



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> **Warm-up question:** Any knot $K$ defines an algebra morphism $I \to \mathbb C$, i.e. a *global point* of $I \in (\text{CAlg})^{\rm{op}}$. Are there any other global points?
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**Edit:** In response to Ilya N's comment below, I've made this [into its own question](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/10957/a-hands-on-description-of-a-completion-of-the-free-commutative-monoid-on-counta).


Finite type invariants
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Recall that a *singular knot* is a smooth map $S^1 \to \mathbb R^3$ with finitely many transverse self-intersections (and otherwise it is an embedding), again up to a natural equivalence. Any knot invariant extends to an invariant of singular knots, as follows: in a singular knot $K\_0$, there are two ways to blow up any singularity, and the orientation determines one as the "right-handed" blow-up $K\_+$ and the other as the "left-handed" blow-up $K\_0$. Evaluate your knot invariant $i$ on each blow-up, and then define $i(K\_0) = i(K\_+) - i(K\_-)$. Note that although the connect-sum of singular knots is not well-defined as a singular knot, if $i\in I$ is a knot-invariant, then it cannot distinguish different connect-sums of singular knots. Note also that the product of knot invariants (i.e. the product in the algebra $I$) is not the point-wise product on singular knots.


A *Vassiliev (or [finite type](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_type_invariant)) invariant of type $\leq n$* is any knot invariant that vanishes on singular knots with $> n$ self-intersections. The space of all Vassiliev invariants is a filtered bialgebra $V$ (filtered by type). The corresponding associated-graded bialgebra $W$ (of "weight systems") has been well-studied (some names: Kontsevich, Bar-Natan, Vaintrob, and I'm sure there are others I haven't read yet) and in fact is more-or-less completely understood (e.g. Hinich and Vaintrob, 2002, "Cyclic operads and algebra of chord diagrams", [MR1913297](http://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1913297), where its graded dual $A$ of "chord diagrams" is described as a sort of universal enveloping algebra). In fact, this algebra $W$ is Hopf. I learned from [this question](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/10827/if-associated-graded-of-a-filtered-bialgebra-is-hopf-does-it-follow-that-the-ori) that this implies that the bialgebra $V$ of Vassiliev invariants is also Hopf. Thus it is a Hopf sub-bialgebra of the algebra $I$ of knot invariants.


I believe that it is an open question whether Vassiliev invariants separate knots (i.e. whether two knots all of whose Vassiliev invariants agree are necessarily the same). But perhaps this has been answered — I feel reasonably caught-up with the state of knowledge in the mid- to late-90s, but I don't know the literature from the 00s.


Geometrically, then, $V \in (\text{CAlg})^{\rm{op}}$ is a commutative group object, and is a quotient (or something) of the monoid-object $I \in (\text{CAlg})^{\rm{op}}$ of knot invariants. The global points of $V$ (i.e. the algebra maps $V \to \mathbb C$ in $\text{CAlg}$) are a group.


Main Questions
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Supposing that Vassiliev invariants separate knots, there must be global points of $V$ that do not correspond to knots, as by [Mazur's swindle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilenberg%E2%80%93Mazur_swindle) there are no "negative knots" among the monoid $I$. Thus my question.



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> **Main question.** What do the global points of $V$ look like? 
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If Vassiliev invariants do separate knots, are there still more global points of $V$ than just the free abelian group on countably many generators (i.e. the group generated by the free monoid of knots)? Yes: the singular knots. (**Edit:** The rule for being a global point is that you can evaluate any knot invariant at it, and that the value of the invariant given by pointwise multiplication *on knots* is the multiplication of the values at the global point. Let $K\_0$ be a singular knot with one crossing and with non-singular blow-ups $K\_+$ and $K\_-$, and let $f,g$ be two knot invariants. Then $$\begin{aligned} (f\cdot g)(K\_0) & = (f\cdot g)(K\_+) - (f\cdot g)(K\_-) = f(K\_+)\cdot g(K\_+) - f(K\_-)\cdot g(K\_-) \neq \\\\ f(K\_0) \cdot g(K\_0) & = f(K\_+)\cdot g(K\_+) - f(K\_+)\cdot g(K\_-) - f(K\_-)\cdot g(K\_+) + f(K\_-)\cdot g(K\_-)\end{aligned}$$.) What else is there? 


What can be said without knowing whether Vassiliev invariants separate knots?



What are the points of Spec(Vassiliev Invariants)?
Just some small comments here. Yes, the question of whether or not Vassiliev invariants separate knots is still open.


One broader context for the question is to consider how Vassiliev invariants were first observed -- via the Vassiliev spectral sequence for the space of "long knots". These are knots of the form $\mathbb R \to \mathbb R^3$ which restrict to a standard (linear) inclusion outside of an interval, say $[-1,1]$.


There's a few standard ways in which the space of long knots can be turned into a topological monoid -- a "Moore loop space" construction which is pretty standard, or a "fat knots" construction from my ["little cubes and long knots"](https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0309427) paper (Topology 46 (2007) 1--27.). So this monoid operation is just the connect-sum operation, suitably jazzed-up to be strictly associative.


An observation for which I'm not sure if anyone has written up a complete proof yet is that the Goodwillie embedding calculus (an alternative approach to the Vassiliev spectral sequence, among other things) factors through the group-completion of the space of long knots. By this I mean, if K is the space of long knots, call the "group completion" the map $K \to \Omega BK$. $\Omega BK$ is where the "formal inverse" to a knot lives. The homotopy-type of $\Omega BK$ is computed in ["little cubes and long knots"](https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0309427). In particular, you can think of the Vassiliev spectral sequence as being an invariant of $\Omega BK$, not $K$. From the point of view of Vassiliev invariants this isn't such a major insight as $\pi\_0 \Omega BK$ is the group-completion of the monoid $\pi\_0 K$, so it's just a free abelian group on countably-many generators.


In particular, there are classes in $H^1 K$ for which there are no obvious finite-type approximations. $H\_1 K$ has some torsion classes for which it's pretty unclear how to detect using the Vassiliev spectral sequence. Here is a mass of torsion computations for the homology of the long knot space: Ryan Budney, Frederick Cohen *On the homology of the space of knots*, Geometry & Topology 13 (2009) 99--139, arXiv:[math/0504206](https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0504206).


edit: although "little cubes and long knots" describes the homotopy-type of the group completion of the space of long knots, it would be nice to have a more "concrete" embedding-space type description of the group completion. Mostovoy has an attempt in *[Short Ropes and Long Knots](https://arxiv.org/abs/math/9810040)*. I believe an idea like this should work and likely Mostovoy's idea works as well, but (again) this is something that needs to be written up for which there hasn't been enough time to start the project.


