nLab fusion category

Contents

Context

Monoidal categories

monoidal categories

With braiding

With duals for objects

With duals for morphisms

With traces

Closed structure

Special sorts of products

Semisimplicity

Morphisms

Internal monoids

Examples

Theorems

In higher category theory

Contents

Definition

Definition

A fusion category is a rigid semisimple linear (Vect-enriched) monoidal category (“tensor category”), with only finitely many isomorphism classes of simple objects, such that the endomorphisms of the unit object form just the ground field kk.

Often one also assumes a braiding and speaks of a braided fusion category.

Examples

The name “fusion category” comes from the central examples of structures whose canonical tensor product is called a “fusion product”, notably representations of loop groups and of Hopf algebras and of vertex operator algebras.

Some of the easiest examples are:

  • Representations of a finite group or (finite super-group)
  • For a given finite group GG and a 3-cocycle on GG with values in (the multiplicative group of units of) a field kk (an element of H 3(G,k ×)H^3(G,k^\times)), take GG-graded vector spaces with the cocycle as associator.

Properties

Relation to weak Hopf algebras

Under Tannaka duality, every fusion category CC arises as the representation category of a weak Hopf algebra. (Ostrik)

Relation to pivotal and spherical categories

Fusion categories were first systematically studied by Etingof, Nikshych and Ostrik in On fusion categories. This paper listed many examples and proved many properties of fusion categories. One of the important conjectures made in that paper was the following:

Conjecture (Etingof, Nikshych, and Ostrik)

Every fusion category admits a pivotal structure.

Providing a certain condition is satisfied, a pivotal structure on a fusion category can be shown to correspond to a ‘twisted’ monoidal natural endotransformation of the identity functor on the category, where the twisting is given by the pivotal symbols.

Relation to extended 3d TQFT

Given the data of a fusion category one can build a 3d extended TQFT by various means. This is explained by the fact, see below, that fusion categories are (probably precisely) the fully dualizable objects in the 3-category MonCatMonCat of monoidal categories. By the homotopy hypothesis this explains how they induce 3d TQFTs.

Definition

Write MonCat bimMonCat_{bim} for the (infinity,3)-category which has as

Proposition

With its natural tensor product, MonCatMonCat is a symmetric monoidal (infinity,3)-category.

Proposition

A monoidal category which is fusion is fully dualizable in the (infinity,3)-category MonCat bimMonCat_{bim}, def. .

This is due to (Douglas & Schommer-Pries & Snyder 13).

Remark

Via the cobordism theorem prop. implies that fusion categories encode extended TQFTs on 3-dimensional framed cobordisms, while their O(3)O(3)-homotopy fixed points encode extended 3d TQFTs on general (not framed) cobordisms.

These 3d TQFTs hence arise from similar algebraic data as the Turaev-Viro model and the Reshetikhin-Turaev construction, however there are various slight differences. See (Douglas & Schommer-Pries & Snyder 13, p. 5).

Suggestions

Here are three things such that it’d be awesome if they were sorted out on this page:

  1. Kuperberg’s theorem saying that abelian semisimple implies linear over some field. Finite, connected, semisimple, rigid tensor categories are linear

  2. Some correct version of the claim that abelian semisimple is the same as idempotent complete and nondegenerate. Math Overflow question

  3. Good notation distinguishing simple versus absolutely simple? (is End(V)=kEnd(V) = k or just VV has no nontrivial proper subobjects).

Together 1 and 2 let you go between the two different obvious notions of semisimple which seem a bit muddled here when I clicked through the links.

References

General

Original articles:

Further review:

On the Tannaka duality to weak Hopf algebras:

The relation to 3d TQFT clarified via the cobordism hypothesis:

and for the case of modular tensor categories:

Discussion in terms of skein relations:

See also:

On a notion of fusion 2-categories:

Anyonic topological order in terms of braided fusion categories

Claim and status

In condensed matter theory it is folklore that species of anyonic topological order correspond to braided unitary fusion categories/modular tensor categories.

The origin of the claim is:

Early accounts re-stating this claim (without attribution):

Further discussion (mostly review and mostly without attribution):

Emphasis that the expected description of anyons by braided fusion categories had remained folklore, together with a list of minimal assumptions that would need to be shown:

An argument that the statement at least for SU(2)-anyons does follow from an enhancement of the K-theory classification of topological phases of matter to interacting topological order:

Further discussion

Relation to ZX-calculus:

On detection of topological order by observing modular transformations on the ground state:

See also:

Last revised on August 6, 2023 at 06:44:04. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.