Milnor's invariants and self $C_{k}$-equivalence

Thomas Fleming, Akira Yasuhara
2008 Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society  
It has long been known that a Milnor invariant with no repeated index is an invariant of link homotopy. We show that Milnor's invariants with repeated indices are invariants not only of isotopy, but also of self C kequivalence. Here self C k -equivalence is a natural generalization of link homotopy based on certain degree k clasper surgeries, which provides a filtration of link homotopy classes.
doi:10.1090/s0002-9939-08-09521-x fatcat:ecvh2xsyozejpkzuxdtlqgfgaa