Extensions of Augmented Racks and Surface Ribbon Cocycle Invariants

Abstract: A rack is a set with a binary operation that is right-invertible and self-distributive, properties diagrammatically corresponding to Reidemeister moves II and III, respectively. A rack is said to be an {\it augmented rack} if the operation is written by a group action. Racks and their cohomology theories have been extensively used for knot and knotted surface invariants. Similarly to group cohomology, rack 2-cocycles relate to extensions, and a natural question that arises is to characterize the extensions of augmented racks that are themselves augmented racks. In this paper, we characterize such extensions in terms of what we call {\it fibrant and additive} cohomology of racks. Simultaneous extensions of racks and groups are considered, where the respective $2$-cocycles are related through a certain formula. Furthermore, we construct coloring and cocycle invariants for compact orientable surfaces with boundary in ribbon forms embedded in $3$-space.