Frobenius-Schur indicators and exponents of spherical categories. (Q876319)

This work continues previous study of the authors and others in extending the notion of (higher) Frobenius-Schur indicators from their original definition for finite groups (or group algebras) to more general structures. The focus here is on semisimple quasi-Hopf algebras over the complex numbers and more general categorical settings. For such an algebra \(H\), the category of finite-dimensional left \(H\)-modules is a fusion category. Most of the definitions and results are in a fusion category setting with applications to the quasi-Hopf algebra case. The paper begins with some general discussions of monoidal categories and a key lemma that relates the Frobenius-Schur indicators to Oceanu's tube algebra. The first main result is a formula for the Frobenius-Schur indicators of objects in a complex spherical fusion category in terms of the dimension of the category and the twist of its (left) center. A consequence of this formula is that the sequence of Frobenius-Schur indicators is periodic and the (left) pivotal dimension of the object appears in this sequence. For a pivotal category over an arbitrary field, the authors define the Frobenius-Schur exponent of an object in the category to be the least index (if it exists) such that the Frobenius-Schur indicator is the pivotal dimension of the object. The Frobenius-Schur exponent of the category is the least index (if it exists) for which this holds for all objects. For a complex semisimple Hopf algebra (or its corresponding module category), this Frobenius-Schur exponent agrees with the notion of exponent introduced by Etingof. However, for a complex semisimple quasi-Hopf algebra \(H\), it is shown that the Frobenius-Schur exponent of \(H\) equals either the exponent of \(H\) or twice the exponent of \(H\), and an example is given to show that the latter case can happen. More generally, for a complex spherical fusion category, it is shown that the Frobenius-Schur exponent is equal to the order of the twist (associated to the pivotal structure on the category) of the center. For a complex spherical fusion category, the center is a modular tensor category. A formula for Frobenius-Schur indicators is also obtained for such categories and used to show that the Frobenius-Schur exponent of such a category is simply the order of its twist. As a result, for a complex spherical fusion category, the Frobenius-Schur exponent agrees with that of its center. This results leads to another significant theorem that, for a complex spherical fusion category in which the Frobenius-Perron dimension of any simple object is an integer, the Frobenius-Schur exponent, the exponent, and the dimension of the category have the same set of prime factors. This applies in particular to the quasi-Hopf algebra setting. Combining this with the above information, if the dimension of \(H\) is odd, then the Frobenius-Schur exponent agrees with the exponent. Lastly, the authors show in general that the Frobenius-Schur exponent of \(H\) divides the fourth power of the dimension of \(H\), improving Etingof's result of dividing the fifth power.