2-categories and 2-knots (Q1341277)

It is known for a while that the Reidemeister moves on diagrams of links can be algebraically encoded into the structure of certain tangle categories \(\text{Tang} (S)\). Here objects are finite collections of labelled (by a set \(S)\) points in \(\mathbb{R}\) and morphisms are isotopy classes of tangles connecting the points in \(\mathbb{R} \times I\). Moreover, it is well-known that \(\text{Tang} (S)\) can be characterized algebraically, through a tensor product structure, and a certain braiding transformation, which encodes the third Reidemeister move. The author shows that the approach above can be generalized to the study of (oriented) surfaces in 4-space. Here the Reidemeister moves are replaced by the Carter-Saito moves on movie-pictures [\textit{J. S. Carter} and \textit{M. Saito}, Lett. Math. Phys. 23, 287-300 (1991; Zbl 0744.57010)]. The author constructs the 2-category \(2 \text{Tang} (S)\) with objects as above, with morphisms equivalence classes of tangle diagrams under isotopies preserving the critical point structure, and with a set of 2-morphisms given by equivalence classes of movies under the Carter-Saito movie moves. Then he proves the corresponding algebraic characterization for these 2-categories.