Faithful simple objects, orders and gradings of fusion categories (Q1954151)

Let \(\mathcal{C}\) be a fusion category over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. Then \(\mathcal{C}\) has a canonical faithful grading \({\mathcal{C}}= \oplus _{g\in U(\mathcal{C})} {\mathcal{C}}_g\) by a universal grading group \(U({\mathcal{C}})\). The author shows that if \(\mathcal{C}\) is generated by simple objects \(X_1\in {\mathcal{C}}_{g_1},\ldots,X_m\in {\mathcal{C}}_{g_m}\), then the group \(U({\mathcal{C}})\) is generated by \(g_1,\ldots,g_m\); moreover the order of \(g_i\) divides the order of \(X_i\) for any \(i\). As a consequence, if \(\mathcal{C}\) has a faithful simple object \(X\), then \(U({\mathcal{C}})\) is cyclic of order dividing the order of \(X\). Conversely, it is showed that if \(\mathcal{C}\) is braided and nilpotent, and \(U({\mathcal{C}})\) is cyclic, then \(\mathcal{C}\) has a faithful simple object. Several interesting consequences derive from here: 1) The exponent of a fusion category \(\mathcal{C}\) divides the least common multiple of the orders of simple objects of \(\mathcal{C}\). In particular if any simple object is self-dual, then \(U({\mathcal{C}})\) is an elementary abelian 2-group; 2) If \(\mathcal{C}\) is nilpotent and has a simple object of prime order \(p\), then \(p\) divides the Frobenius-Perron dimension of \(\mathcal{C}\); moreover, if the order of any simple object of \(\mathcal{C}\) is a power of \(p\), then so is the Frobenius-Perron dimension of \(\mathcal{C}\); 3) If \(\mathcal{C}\) is braided and \(X_1,\ldots, X_n\) are simple objects generating \(\mathcal{C}\) as a fusion category, then the exponent of \(U({\mathcal{C}})\) divides the least common multiple of the orders of \(X_1,\ldots,X_n\). The results are applied to the study of fusion categories which are not pointed and such that the tensor product of any two simple objects is a sum of invertible objects.