Local moves for links with common sublinks

A C-k-move is a local move that involves k + 1 strands of a link. A C-k-move is called a C-k(d)-move if these k + 1 strands belong to mutually distinct components of a link. Since a C-k(d)-move preserves all k-component sublinks of a link, we consider the converse implication: are two links with common k-component sublinks related by a sequence of C-k(d)-moves? We show that the answer is yes under certain assumptions, and provide explicit counter-examples for more general situations. In particular, we consider (n, k)-Brunnian links, i.e. n-component links whose k-component sublinks are all trivial. We show that such links can be deformed into a trivial link by C-k(d)-moves, thus generalizing a result of Habiro and Miyazawa-Yasuhara, and deduce some results on finite type invariants of (n, k)-Brunnian links. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.