A 2-categorical extension of the Reshetikhin-Turaev theory (Q2349342)

It is generally understood among experts that the Reshetikhin-Turaev surgery invariants of three-manifolds with boundary fit into the structure of an ``extended projective topological quantum field theory'': a symmetric monoidal functor from an appropriate bicategory \(\mathrm{Cob}_{123}\) of closed one-manifolds, two-manifolds with boundary, and three-manifolds with corners to an appropriate bicategory \(\mathrm{2Vect}\) of linear categories, linear functors, and natural transformations. But ``general understanding'' is not the same as ``complete description in the literature.'' There are many obstructions, including explaining the meaning of the words ``symmetric monoidal functor of bicategories'' and constructing a version of \(\mathrm{Cob}_{123}\) that facilitates the Reshetikhin-Turaev surgery invariants. This paper provides an important step in overcoming these obstructions, by extending the Reshetikhin-Turaev surgery invariants to a subbicategory, called \(\mathrm{Co}\) in the paper, of \(\mathrm{Cob}_{123}\). More precisely, \(\mathrm{Co}\) is a version of the (non-monoidal!) bicategory whose objects are closed one-manifolds, one-morphisms are \textit{connected} surfaces with boundary, and two-morphisms are cobordisms thereof. The paper constructs a projective functor \(\mathrm{Co} \to \mathrm{2Vect}\), where the latter is taken to be the bicategory of Kapranov-Voevodsky 2-vector spaces. Quite explicit formulas for this functor are given. In fact, \(\mathrm{Co}\) is highly combinatorial, with objects and one-morphisms consisting only of ``standard'' one-manifolds (one for each integer) and ``standard'' surfaces (indexed by certain combinatorial data). Equivalence classes of cobordisms between these are then indexed by ``special ribbon graphs'', and the values of the functor are described in terms of these combinatorial data.