The notion of weak bialgebra is a generalization of that of bialgebra in which the comultiplication is weak in the sense that in general; similarly the compatibility of counit with the multiplication map is weakened (counit might fail to be a morphism of algebras). (Still a special case of sesquialgebra.)
Correspondingly weak Hopf algebras generalize Hopf algebras accordingly. Every weak Hopf algebra defines a Hopf algebroid.
This kind of structures naturally comes in CFT models relation to quantum groups a root of unity: the full symmetry algebra is not quite a quantum group at root of unity, because if it were one would have to include the nonphysical quantum dimension zero finite-dimensional quantum group representations into the (pre)Hilbert space; those are the zero norm states which do not contribute to physics (like ghosts). If one quotients by these states then the true unit of a quantum group becomes an idempotent (projector), hence one deals with weak Hopf algebras instead as a price of dealing with true, physical, Hilbert space.
A weak bialgebra is a tuple such that is an associative unital algebra, is a coassociative counital coalgebra and the following compatibilities, (i),(ii) and (iii), hold:
(i) the coproduct is multiplicative . If only (i) is satisfied, following Böhm, Caenapeel and Janssen 2011, we may speak of a prebialgebra.
(ii) the counit satisfies weak multiplicativity
A prebialgebra satisfying the first (the second) of the above properties is said to be left (right) monoidal.
(iii) Weak comultiplicativity of the unit:
A prebialgebra satisfying the first (the second) of the above properties is said to be left (right) comonoidal.
As usually in the context of coassociative coalgebras, we denoted .
A weak -bialgebra is a weak Hopf algebra if it has a -linear map (which is then called an antipode) such that for all
It follows that the antipode is antimultiplicative, , and anticomultiplicative, .
For every weak bialgebra there are -linear maps defined by
Expressions for are already met above as the right hand sides in two of the axioms for the antipode. Maps are idempotents, and :
Notice . The images of the idempotents and are dual as -linear spaces: there is a canonical nondegenerate pairing given by .
Also and , dually and , and in particular .
Sometimes it is also useful to consider the idempotents defined by
Under Tannaka duality, every fusion category arises as the representation category of a weak Hopf algebra (Ostrik). However, this does not mean that every fusion category admits a fiber functor to the category of vector spaces .
Given any multi-fusion category , one can always construct a fiber functor for the algebra spanned by a basis of orthogonal idempotents for the equivalence classes of simple objects of . This functor is referred to in some sources as a generalized fiber functor. The endomorphisms of this functor then give a weak Hopf algebra that represents . In Hayashi 1999 (see there for the relevant definitions), this is computed as a coend, where one has that for , where is equipped with a coalgebra structure
It is important to note that, generally speaking, may admit other fiber functor to different module categories , as is the case for fusion categories of the form for a Hopf algebra, which admits both the fiber functor described above, as well as a fiber functor to .
Even further, this statement generalizes to tensor C-star-categories and C-star weak Hopf algebras (Vainerman & Vallin 2020).
As explained in Hopf algebra, any finite-dimensional Hopf algebra can be given the structure of a Frobenius algebra. There is a similar result for weak Hopf algebras.
Any finite-dimensional weak Hopf algebra can be given the structure of a quasi-Frobenius algebra.
This is due to Bohm, Nill, and Szlachanyi (1999). While Vecsernyés (2003) seems to show that finite-dimensional weak Hopf algebras can be turned into Frobenius algebras, it is observed in Iovanov & Kadison (2008) that the proof only implies they are quasi-Frobenius algebras.
Weak comultiplications were introduced in
where also weak quasi-bialgebras are considered and physical motivation is discussed in detail. Further work in this vain is in
A book exposition is in chapter weak (Hopf) bialgebras in
Now these works are understood categorically from the point of view of weak monad theory:
The relation to fusion categories is discussed in
Takahiro Hayashi, A canonical Tannaka duality for finite semisimple tensor categories (arXiv:math/9904073)
Victor Ostrik, Module categories, weak Hopf algebras and modular invariants (arXiv:math/0111139)
On the relation to Frobenius algebras
Gabriella Bohm, Florian Nill?, Kornel Szlachanyi. Weak Hopf Algebras I: Integral Theory and -structure. (1999). (arXiv:math/9805116)
Peter Vecsernyés?. Larson–Sweedler theorem and the role of grouplike elements in weak Hopf algebras. Journal of Algebra. Volume 270, Issue 2, 15 December 2003, Pages 471-520. (doi)
Miodrag Iovanov, Lars Kadison?. When weak Hopf algebras are Frobenius. (2008). (arXiv:0810.4777)
On the Tannaka duality of C-star weak Hopf algebras:
Last revised on March 5, 2024 at 16:30:58. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.