A Hermitian TQFT from a non-semisimple category of quantum \({\mathfrak{sl}(2)}\)-modules (Q2162503)

This paper has two main results. The first is the description of a Hermitian structure on certain non-semisimple ribbon tensor categories \(\mathcal{D}^{\mathrm{Herm}}\) of modules of the unrolled quantum groups \(\overline{U}^H_q\mathfrak{sl}_2\), where \(q\) is a \(2r^{\mathrm{th}}\) root of unity. This result can be considered a non-semisimple generalization of results of \textit{A. A. Kirillov jun.} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 9, No. 4, 1135--1169 (1996; Zbl 0861.05065)] and \textit{H. Wenzl} [ibid. 11, No. 2, 261--282 (1998; Zbl 0888.46043)]. The second main result is the construction of a corresponding Hermitian structure on (a part of) the TQFT associated to \(\overline{U}^H_q\mathfrak{sl}_2\) by Blanchet, Costantino, Geer and Patureau-Mirand [\textit{C. Blanchet} et al., Adv. Math. 301, 1--78 (2016; Zbl 1412.57025)]. Note that the Hermitian structures considered are almost never unitary (that is, the relevant Hermitian forms are almost never positive). In particular, the TQFT yields projective representations of mapping class groups with values in \textit{indefinite} unitary groups. Section 2 of the paper gives a quick review of \(\overline{U}^H_q\mathfrak{sl}_2\) and its ribbon tensor category \(\mathcal{C}\) of weight modules. Section 3 reviews Turaev's definition of a Hermitian structure on a ribbon category, as well as the important technical notion of modified traces on projective modules of \(\overline{U}^H_q\mathfrak{sl}_2\). Section 4 is the core of the paper. The authors begin by constructing a Hermitian structure on \(\overline{U}^H_q\mathfrak{sl}_2\), and use that to define a notion of Hermitian structure on a module. This is relatively straightforward. However, identifying a category of Hermitian \(\overline{U}^H_q\mathfrak{sl}_2\)-modules that admits a Hermitian ribbon tensor structure is non-trivial. While \(\mathcal{C}\) has a (non-Hermitian) ribbon structure, it is explained after Lemma 4.10 that the category \(\mathcal{C}^{\mathrm{Herm}}\) of modules equipped with a Hermitian structure is problematic because objects in it are not completely indecomposable. Thus, the authors instead pass to a certain Karoubi-closed subcategory \(\mathcal{D}\) of \(\mathcal{C}\). Theorem 1 proves that \(\mathcal{D}^{\mathrm{Herm}}\) is a Hermitian ribbon tensor category. Readers may be interested to see that the authors need the notion of a \emph{half-twist} in order to define the Hermitian structure on the tensor product of two Hermitian modules in \(\mathcal{D}^{\mathrm{Herm}}\). In the final Section 5, the authors endow the TQFT of Blanchet, Costantino, Geer and Patureau-Mirand [loc. cit.] with a Hermitian structure. More precisely, the authors must pass to a certain subcategory