Indicators of Tambara-Yamagami categories and Gauss sums (Q888237)

Let \(\mathcal C\) be a spherical category. For each simple object \(V\) of \(\mathcal C\) and each integer \(k\geq1\), \textit{S.-H. Ng} and \textit{P. Schauenburg} [Contemp. Math. 441, 63--90 (2007; Zbl 1153.18008)], define a complex number \(\nu_k(V)\), called the \(k\)-th indicator of \(V\). These numbers, called higher Frobenius-Schur indicators, are a powerful tool in order to study pivotal categories. In the paper under review, the authors prove that these indicators give a strong-enough invariant to distinguish betwen any two Tambara-Yamagami fusion categories. More precisely, for two Tambara-Yamagami categories \(\mathcal C\) and \(\mathcal C'\), the main result (Theorem 1.1) gives sufficient conditions involving \(k\) indicators to ensure that \(\mathcal C\cong\mathcal C'\) as spherical fusion categories. As a consequence, and related to a conjecture of \textit{V. Turaev} and \textit{L. Vainerman} [Enseign. Math. (2) 58, No. 1--2, 131--146 (2012; Zbl 1357.57042)], the authors show that the state-sum invariants of a Tambara-Yamagami category determine the category as long as we restrict to Tambara-Yamagami categories coming from groups \(G\) whose order is not a power of \(2\).