Invertible braided tensor categories

DOI10.2140/AGT.2021.21.2107MaRDI QIDQ1983593zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Adrien Brochier, David Jordan, Pavel Safronov, Noah Snyder

Publication date 10 September 2021

Published in Algebraic \& Geometric Topology (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.13812

braided tensor categories higher categories topological field theories

Fusion categories, modular tensor categories, modular functors (18M20) Topological quantum field theories (aspects of differential topology) (57R56)

Abstract: We prove that a finite braided tensor category A is invertible in the Morita 4-category BrTens of braided tensor categories if, and only if, it is non-degenerate. This includes the case of semisimple modular tensor categories, but also non-semisimple examples such as categories of representations of the small quantum group at good roots of unity. Via the cobordism hypothesis, we obtain new invertible 4-dimensional framed topological field theories, which we regard as a non-semisimple framed version of the Crane-Yetter-Kauffman invariants, after Freed--Teleman and Walker's construction in the semisimple case. More generally, we characterize invertibility for E_1- and E_2-algebras in an arbitrary symmetric monoidal oo-category, and we conjecture a similar characterization of invertible E_n-algebras for any n. Finally, we propose the Picard group of BrTens as a generalization of the Witt group of non-degenerate braided fusion categories, and pose a number of open questions about it.

Review text

Building on previous work of a subset of the authors [\textit{A. Brochier} et al., Compos. Math. 157, No. 3, 435--482 (2021; Zbl 1461.18014)] that gave sufficient conditions for 3- and 4-dualizability in the symmetric monoidal category \textbf{BrTens} of braided tensor categories, the authors show that objects in \textbf{BrTens} are invertible if and only if they are nondegenerate. This characterization of invertibility in \textbf{BrTens} is achieved by working in the more general setting of \(E_n\)-algebras. Sufficient conditions are given for (n+1)-dualizability and invertibility in the (\(\infty\),\(n\)+2)-category \(\text{Alg}_n(\mathcal{S})\) of \(E_n\)-algebras in an arbitrary background symmetric monoidal (\(\infty\), 2)-category \(\mathcal{S}\) when \(n=1\) and \(n=2\). Conjectural characterizations of (n+1)-dualizability and invertibility for \(E_n\)-algebras for \(n>2\) are motivated and stated in the language of factorization homology. Karoubian (in particular semisimple) nondegenerate braided tensor categories were previously known to be invertible in \textbf{BrTens} [\textit{T. Johnson-Freyd}, ``On the classification of topological orders, Preprint, \url{arXiv:2003.06663}], but the characterization of invertibility of \(E_2\)--algebras enables the authors to treat non-semisimple finite braided tensor categories like small quantum groups at suitable roots of unity. Several other insights into braided tensor category theory are derived along the way, including the equivalence of factorizability and co-factorizability for finite braided tensor categories and an isomorphism between the Witt group of nondegenerate braided fusion categories and the Picard group of the 4-category \textbf{BrFus} of braided fusion categories. The latter is used to motivate the Picard group of \textbf{BrTens} as a candidate for a non-finite and non-semisimple generalization of the Witt group. As an application to the construction of topological field theories via the cobordism hypothesis, one obtains a nonsemisimple framed generalization of the Crane-Yetter-Kauffman (3+1)-dimensional TFT attached to every nondegenerate finite braided tensor category. The authors propose to use their tools for analyzing invertibility to study more general TFTs in future work, for example Rozansky-Witten TFT in a derived analogue of \textbf{BrTens}.

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