We prove a “splicing formula” for the LMO invariant, which is the universal finite-type invariant of rational homology three-spheres. Specifically, if a rational homology three-sphere M is obtained by gluing the exteriors of two framed knots $K_1 \subset M_1$ and $K_2\subset M_2$ in rational homology three-spheres, our formula expresses the LMO invariant of M in terms of the Kontsevich–LMO invariants of $(M_1,K_1)$ and $(M_2,K_2)$ . The proof uses the techniques that Bar-Natan and Lawrence developed to obtain a rational surgery formula for the LMO invariant. In low degrees, we recover Fujita’s formula for the Casson–Walker invariant, and we observe that the second term of the Ohtsuki series is not additive under “standard” splicing. The splicing formula also works when each $M_i$ comes with a link $L_i$ in addition to the knot $K_i$ , hence we get a “satellite formula” for the Kontsevich–LMO invariant.

We apply the concept of braiding sequences to link polynomials to show polynomial growth bounds on the derivatives of the Jones polynomial evaluated on S1 and of the Brandt–Lickorish–Millett–Ho polynomial evaluated on [–2, 2] on alternating and positive knots of given genus. For positive links, boundedness criteria for the coefficients of the Jones, HOMFLY and Kauffman polynomials are derived. (This is a continuation of the paper ‘Applications of braiding sequences. I’: Commun. Contemp. Math.12(5) (2010), 681–726.)