Braided Picard groups and graded extensions of braided tensor categories (Q2046893)

It is my understanding that Saunders Mac Lane had not made the connection between his work on categorical structures and his earlier work with Samuel Eilenberg on group cohomology until John E. Roberts pointed out that the associativity pentagon was a non-abelian 3-cocycle condition. The present paper vastly develops that connection. The categorical structures of concern here are monoidal bicategories using the terminology and setting of \textit{B. Day} and \textit{R. Street} [Adv. Math. 129, No. 1, 99--157 (1997; Zbl 0910.18004)]. So the monoidal bicategories are assumed to be Gray monoids (= semi-strict monoidal 2-categories). The tensor product of the Gray monoid can be braided, sylleptic or symmetric. There are three kinds of centres at this level: the centre of a monoidal bicategory is a braided monoidal bicategory; the centre of a braided monoidal bicategory is a sylleptic monoidal bicategory; the centre of a sylleptic monoidal bicategory is a symmetric monoidal bicategory (see [\textit{J. C. Baez} and \textit{M. Neuchl}, Adv. Math. 121, No. 2, 196--244 (1996; Zbl 0855.18008)] and [\textit{S. E. Crans}, Adv. Math. 136, No. 2, 183--223 (1998; Zbl 0908.18004)]). For an abelian group \(A\) and \(A\)-module \(M\), and with \(K(A,m)\) the usual Eilenberg-Mac Lane space, the cohomologies of concern here are \begin{align*} H^n(A,M) &= H^n(K(A,1),M) , & H_{br}^n(A,M) &= H^{n+1}(K(A,2),M) , \\ H_{syl}^n(A,M) &= H^{n+2}(K(A,3),M) , & H_{\mathrm{sym}}^n(A,M) &= H^{n+3}(K(A,4),M) , \end{align*} called usual, braided, sylleptic, symmetric cohomology groups, respectively. The explicit interpretations of these groups, as calculated by \textit{S. Eilenberg} and \textit{S. MacLane} [Ann. Math. (2) 60, 49--139 (1954; Zbl 0055.41704)], is presented for \(n\le 4\). Attention turns to more specific monoidal bicategories, what they call 2-categorical groups; that is, monoidal bicategories \(\mathbf{G}\) whose objects have tensor-inverses up to equivalence, whose 1-morphisms are equivalences, and whose 2-cells are isomorphisms. Let \(\mathcal{I}\) denote the tensor unit. The (1-)categorical group \(\Pi_{\le 1}\mathbf{G}\) has isomorphism classes of 1-morphisms of \(\mathbf{G}\) as 1-morphisms. The braided categorical group \(\Pi_{1\le}\mathbf{G}\) is \(\mathbf{G}(\mathcal{I},\mathcal{I})\). There are homotopy groups \begin{align*} \pi_0(\mathbf{G}) &= \mathrm{ob}\mathbf{G}/\simeq , \\ \pi_1(\mathbf{G}) &= \mathbf{G}(\mathcal{I},\mathcal{I})/\cong , \\ \pi_2(\mathbf{G}) &= \mathbf{G}(\mathcal{I},\mathcal{I})(1_{\mathcal{I}},1_{\mathcal{I}}) , \end{align*} the last two being abelian. The adjoint action \(\mathrm{Ad} : \mathbf{G}\to \mathbf{Aut}(\mathbf{G})\) delivers a (strong) monoidal functor \(a : \Pi_{\le 1}\mathbf{G} \to \mathbf{Aut}_{br}(\Pi_{1\le}\mathbf{G})\) which induces Whitehead brackets amongst the homotopy groups. The first and second canonical classes of \(\mathbf{G}\) are defined to be the associator invariant \(\alpha_{\mathbf{G}}\in H^3(\pi_0(\mathbf{G}),\pi_1(\mathbf{G}))\) for the categorical group \(\Pi_{\le1}(\mathbf{G})\) and the invariant \(q_{\mathbf{G}}\in H_{br}^3(\pi_1(\mathbf{G}),\pi_2(\mathbf{G}))\) as in Section 3 of [\textit{A. Joyal} and \textit{R. Street}, Adv. Math. 102, No. 1, 20--78 (1993; Zbl 0817.18007)] for the braided categorical group \(\Pi_{1\le}(\mathbf{G})\). When \(\mathbf{G}\) is braided, \(\alpha_{\mathbf{G}}\in H_{br}^3(\pi_0(\mathbf{G}),\pi_1(\mathbf{G}))\), \(q_{\mathbf{G}}\in H_{\mathrm{sym}}^3(\pi_1(\mathbf{G}),\pi_2(\mathbf{G}))\) and there is a new bracket operation \(\pi_0(\mathbf{G})\times \pi_1(\mathbf{G})\to \pi_2(\mathbf{G})\). When \(\mathbf{G}\) is symmetric, \(\alpha_{\mathbf{G}}\in H_{\mathrm{sym}}^3(\pi_0(\mathbf{G}),\pi_1(\mathbf{G}))\), \(q_{\mathbf{G}}\in H_{\mathrm{sym}}^3(\pi_1(\mathbf{G}),\pi_2(\mathbf{G}))\) and the brackets are trivial. Section 2.5 studies monoidal 2-functors between 2-categorical groups. For a group \(G\) (regarded as a 2-categorical group with only identity 1- and 2-morphisms) and a 2-categorical group \(\mathbf{G}\), each (strong) monoidal functor \(C : G\to \Pi_{\le1}(\mathbf{G})\), according to [\textit{P. Etingof} et al., Quantum Topol. 1, No. 3, 209--273 (2010; Zbl 1214.18007)], leads to a 4-cocycle \(p_C^0 : G^4\to \pi_2(\mathbf{G})\) whose cohomology class in \(H^4(G,\pi_2(\mathbf{G}))\) is invariant under isomorphic change of \(C\); the class is \(0\) if and only if \(C\) extends to \(C : G\to \mathbf{G}\). Proposition 2.24 exhibits a homomorphism \(p_C^1 : \mathrm{Aut}(C)\cong H^1(G,\pi_1(\mathbf{G})) \to H^3(G,\pi_2(\mathbf{G}))\) whose kernel consists of the monoidal pseudonatural automorphisms. Section 2.6 and 2.7 do a similar analysis for braided and symmetric monoidal 2-functors; \(G\) is replaced by an abelian group \(A\). A symmetric 2-categorical group structure is defined on the 2-category \(\mathbf{2\text{-}Fun_{\mathrm{sym}}}(A, \mathbf{G})\) of symmetric monoidal 2-functors. Theorem 2.38 delivers a 5-term exact sequence \begin{align*} H^1(A,\pi_1(\mathbf{G})) \to H_{\mathrm{sym}}^3(A,\pi_2(\mathbf{G}))\to \pi_0(\mathbf{2\text{-}Fun_{\mathrm{sym}}}(A, \mathbf{G})) \to \pi_0(\mathcal{F}un_{\mathrm{sym}}(A,\Pi_{\le 1}(\mathbf{G})) \to H_{\mathrm{sym}}^4(A,\pi_2(\mathbf{G})) . \end{align*} Section 3 discusses module categories which here means categories on which tensor categories act (actegories) with some finiteness restrictions. When the tensor category \(\mathcal{B}\) is braided, left \(\mathcal{B}\)-module categories become \(\mathcal{B}\)-bimodule categories (two-sided compatible \(\mathcal{B}\)-actions). A notion of braiding for a module categories appears as Definition 4.1; the monoidal 2-category of such is biequivalent to the monoidal centre of the monoidal 2-category of \(\mathcal{B}\)-module categories (Theorem 4.2). Section 4.3 provides examples and basic properties of braided module categories. Then we are ready in Section 5 for the 2-categorical Brauer-Picard group of a tensor category \(\mathcal{D}\); the objects are \(\mathcal{D}\)-bimodule categories with tensor inverses up to equivalence. The various types of graded extensions of the finite braided tensor category \(\mathcal{B}\) are then classified in terms of its 2-categorical Picard groups. In particular, braided extensions of \(\mathcal{B}\) by a finite group \(A\) correspond to braided monoidal 2-functors from \(A\) to the braided 2-categorical Picard group of \(\mathcal{B}\). Such functors are expressed in terms of the Eilenberg-Mac Lane cohomology. Braided 2-categorical Picard groups of symmetric fusion categories and of pointed braided fusion categories are described in detail.