The center of monoidal 2-categories in 3+1D Dijkgraaf-Witten theory (Q2281340)

It was long ago [\textit{J. C. Baez} and \textit{M. Neuchl}, Adv. Math. 121, No. 2, 196--244 (1996; Zbl 0855.18008); \textit{M. Kapranov} and \textit{V. Voevodsky}, J. Pure Appl. Algebra 92, No. 3, 241--267 (1994; Zbl 0791.18010)] that the notion of the center of a monoidal $2$-category was introduced. The principal objective in this paper is to compute the centers of non-trivial monoidal $2$-categories in the simplest case. Let $\mathcal{V}$ be the $1$-category of finite-dimensional vector spaces over $\mathbb{C}$. Let $G$ be a finite group and $\omega\in Z^{4}(G,\mathbb{C}^{\times})$ a $4$-cocycle. Let $2\mathrm{Vec}_{G}^{\omega}$ be the $2$-category of $G$-graded $1$-categories of finite semisimple $\mathcal{V}$-module categories endowed with a $\omega$-twisted monoidal structure, making $2\mathrm{Vec}_{G}^{\omega}$ a non-strict monoidal $2$-category. The goal is to compute the center of $2\mathrm{Vec}_{G}^{\omega}$ as a braided monoidal $2$-category, which can be seen as $3+1\mathrm{D}$ Dijkgraaf-Witten theory for a finite group $G$ [\textit{R. Dijkgraaf} and \textit{E. Witten}, Commun. Math. Phys. 129, No. 2, 393--429 (1990; Zbl 0703.58011)]. The paper contains three principal results. The first principal result (Theorem 2.2) is that the center of a monoidal $2$-category is a braided monoidal $2$-category. The second principal result (Theorem 3.3) is an explicit computation of the center $\mathcal{Z}(2\mathrm{Vec}_{G}^{\omega})$ as a $2$-categorical generalization of \textit{S. Willerton}'s [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 8, No. 3, 1419--1457 (2008; Zbl 1154.57029)] explicit computation of $\mathcal{Z}(1\mathrm{Vec}_{G}^{\chi})$ with $\chi\in Z^{3}(G,\mathbb{C}^{\times})$. The third principal result (Theorem 3.13) is that the sylleptic center of $\mathcal{Z}(2\mathrm{Vec}_{G}^{\omega})$ is trivial.