Higher central charges and Witt groups (Q2671884)

Let \(\mathcal{C}\) be a fusion category. Using the number theoretic properties of the categorical dimension and the Frobenius-Perron dimension of \(\mathcal{C}\) respectively, the paper under review defines two notions of signature of \(\mathcal{C}\), defining homomorphisms from the (super-)Witt group \(\mathcal{W}\) of non-degenerate braided fusion categories to the group of maps from the absolute Galois group \(\operatorname{Gal}(\overline{\mathbb{Q}})\) to \(\left\{ 1,-1 \right\}\). In the case of Frobenius-Perron dimension, the signature homomorphism generalizes to the setting of fusion categories over a symmetric fusion category studied in [\textit{A. Davydov} et al., Sel. Math., New Ser. 19, No. 1, 237--269 (2013; Zbl 1345.18005)]. If \(\mathcal{C}\) is modular, the paper gives a description of higher charges of \(\mathcal{C}\), introduced in [\textit{S. Ng} et al., Sel. Math., New Ser. 25, No. 4, Paper No. 53, 32 p. (2019; Zbl 1430.18015)], in terms of the signature of \(\mathcal{C}\). Viewing the central charge construction for \(\mathcal{C}\) as a function \(\Psi_{\mathcal{C}}\) from \(\operatorname{Gal}(\overline{\mathbb{Q}})\), the signature description is used to show that the assignment \(\mathcal{C} \mapsto \Psi_{\mathcal{C}}\) gives a group homomorphism from the Witt group of pseudounitary modular categories to the group of functions from \(\operatorname{Gal}(\overline{\mathbb{Q}})\) to \(\bigcup_{n=1}^{\infty} \mu_{n}\), where \(\mu_{n}\) is the group of \(n\)th roots of unity. Further, the paper determines the signatures of certain infinite families of categories \(\mathcal{C}_{r} := \mathfrak{so}(2r+1)_{2r+1}\) of integrable highest weight modules of level \(2r+1\) over the affinization of \(\mathfrak{so}(2r+1)\). Using these results, it is shown that, for an Ising modular category \(\mathcal{I}\), the equation \(x^{2} = [I]\) has infinitely many solutions in the quotient \(\mathcal{W}/\mathcal{W}_{\operatorname{pt}}\) of \(\mathcal{W}\) by the pointed part of \(\mathcal{W}\). This is shown to imply that for the super-Witt group \(s\mathcal{W}\), the torsion subgroup \(s\mathcal{W}_{2}\) generated by the completely anisotropic \(s\)-simple braided fusion categories is of infinite rank. This confirms a conjecture made in [\textit{A. Davydov} et al., Sel. Math., New Ser. 19, No. 1, 237--269 (2013; Zbl 1345.18005)].