A diagrammatical characterization of Milnor invariants

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to give a diagrammatical characterization of the information given by the Milnor invariants of links and string links. More precisely, we describe when two string links have equal Milnor invariants of length $\leq q$ and when a link has trivial Milnor invariants of lenght $\leq q$. This will be done through the use of welded knot theory, involving the notions of arrow calculus and $w_q$--concordance introduced by J-B. Meilhan and A. Yasuhara. These results is to be compared to the classification of links up to $C_q$--concordance obtained by J. Conant, R. Schneiderman and P. Teichner.