Using the theory of measurable categories developped by Yetter in work in preparation, we provide a notion of representations of 2-groups more well-suited to physically and geometrically interesting examples than that proposed in unpublished work of Barrett and Mackaay using 2-VECT of Kapranov and Voevodsky. Using this theory we sketch a 2-categorical approach to the state-sum model for Lorentzian quantum gravity proposed in by the authors in previous work and suggest state-integral constructions for 4-manifold invariants.
We develop the theory of categories of measurable fields of Hilbert spaces and bounded fields of bounded operators. We examine classes of functors and natural transformations with good measure theoretic properties, providing in the end a rigorous construction for the bicategory used in joint work with Crane as the basis for a representation theory of (Lie) 2-groups. Several important technical results are established along the way: First it is shown that all bounded invertible additive functors (and thus a fortiori all invertible *-functors) between categories of measurable fields of Hilbert s…
A "2-group" is a category equipped with a multiplication satisfying laws like those of a group. Just as groups have representations on vector spaces, 2-groups have representations on "2-vector spaces", which are categories analogous to vector spaces. Unfortunately, Lie 2-groups typically have few representations on the finite-dimensional 2-vector spaces introduced by Kapranov and Voevodsky. For this reason, Crane, Sheppeard and Yetter introduced certain infinite-dimensional 2-vector spaces called "measurable categories" (since they are closely related to measurable fields of Hilbert spaces), a…
We analyze the structure of the Witt group W of braided fusion categories introduced in the previous paper arXiv:1009.2117v2. We define a "super" version of the categorical Witt group, namely, the group sW of slightly degenerate braided fusion categories. We prove that sW is a direct sum of the classical part, an elementary Abelian 2-group, and a free Abelian group. Furthermore, we show that the kernel of the canonical homomorphism S: W --> sW is generated by Ising categories and is isomorphic to Z/16Z. Finally, we give a complete description of etale algebras in tensor products of braided fus…
We characterize a natural class of modular categories of prime power Frobenius-Perron dimension as representation categories of twisted doubles of finite p-groups. We also show that a nilpotent braided fusion category C admits an analogue of the Sylow decomposition. If the simple objects of C have integral Frobenius-Perron dimensions then C is group-theoretical. As a consequence, we obtain that semisimple quasi-Hopf algebras of prime power dimension are group-theoretical. Our arguments are based on a reconstruction of twisted group doubles from Lagrangian subcategories of modular categories (t…
We give a characterization of Drinfeld centers of fusion categories as non-degenerate braided fusion categories containing a Lagrangian algebra. Further we study the quotient of the monoid of non-degenerate braided fusion categories modulo the submonoid of the Drinfeld centers and show that its formal properties are similar to those of the classical Witt group.
We classify integral modular categories of dimension pq^4 and p^2q^2 where p and q are distinct primes. We show that such categories are always group-theoretical except for categories of dimension 4q^2. In these cases there are well-known examples of non-group-theoretical categories, coming from centers of Tambara-Yamagami categories and quantum groups. We show that a non-group-theoretical integral modular category of dimension 4q^2 is equivalent to either one of these well-known examples or is of dimension 36 and is twist-equivalent to fusion categories arising from a certain quantum group.
We compute the group of braided tensor autoequivalences and the Brauer-Picard group of the representation category of the small quantum group $\mathfrak{u}_q(\mathfrak{g})$, where $q$ is a root of unity.
We develop methods of computation of the Brauer-Picard groups of fusion categories and apply them to compute such groups for several classes of fusion categories of prime power dimension: representation categories of elementary abelian groups with twisted associativity constraint, extra special p-groups, and the Kac-Paljutkin Hopf algebra. We conclude that many finite groups of Lie type occur as composition factors of the Brauer-Picard groups of pointed fusion categories.
We describe Lagrangian algebras in twisted Drinfeld centres for finite groups. Using the full centre construction, we establish a 1-1 correspondence between Lagrangian algebras and module categories over pointed fusion categories.
In the preceeding paper we constructed an infinite exact sequence a la Villamayor-Zelinsky for a symmetric finite tensor category. It consists of cohomology groups evaluated at three types of coefficients which repeat periodically. In the present paper we interpret the middle cohomology group in the second level of the sequence. We introduce the notion of coring categories and we obtain that the mentioned middle cohomology group is isomorphic to the group of Azumaya quasi coring categories. This result is a categorical generalization of the classical Crossed Product Theorem, which relates the …
We give a necessary and sufficient condition in terms of group cohomology for two indecomposable module categories over a group-theoretical fusion category ${\mathcal C}$ to be equivalent. This concludes the classification of such module categories.
We study the Kac cohomology for matched pairs of locally compact groups. This cohomology theory arises from the extension theory of locally compact quantum groups. We prove a topological version of the Kac exact sequence and provide methods to compute the cohomology. We give explicit calculations in several examples using results of Moore and Wigner.
Ng and Schauenburg generalized higher Frobenius-Schur indicators to pivotal fusion categories and showed that these indicators may be computed utilizing the modular data of the Drinfel'd center of the given category. We consider two classes of fusion categories generated by a single non-invertible simple object: near groups, those fusion categories with one non-invertible simple object, and Haagerup-Izumi categories, those with one non-invertible simple object for every invertible object. Examples of both types arise as representations of finite or quantum groups or as Jones standard invariant…
We classify C$^*$ near-group categories by using Vaughan Jones theory of subfactors and the Cuntz algebra endomorphisms. Our results show that there is a sharp contrast between two essentially different cases, integral and irrational cases. When the dimension of the unique non-invertible object is an integer, we obtain a complete classification list, and it turns out that such categories are always group theoretical. When it is irrational, we obtain explicit polynomial equations whose solutions completely classify the C$^*$ near-group categories in this class.
G-equivariant modular categories provide the input for a standard method to construct 3d homotopy field theories. Virelizier constructed a G-equivariant category from the action of a group G on a Hopf algebra H by Hopf algebra automorphisms. The neutral component of his category is the Drinfeld center of the category of H-modules. We generalize this construction to weak actions of a group G on an arbitrary monoidal category C by (possibly non-strict) monoidal auto-equivalences and obtain a G-equivariant category with neutral component the Drinfeld center of C.
This is a study of weakly integral braided fusion categories with elementary fusion rules to determine which possess nondegenerately braided extensions of theoretically minimal dimension, or equivalently in this case, which satisfy the minimal modular extension conjecture. We classify near-group braided fusion categories satisfying the minimal modular extension conjecture; the remaining Tambara-Yamagami braided fusion categories provide arbitrarily large families of braided fusion categories with identical fusion rules violating the minimal modular extension conjecture. These examples generali…
We prove that any fusion category over $\mathbb{C}$ with exactly one non-invertible simple object is spherical. Furthermore, we classify all such categories that come equipped with a braiding.
We describe the structure of a generalized near-group fusion category and present an example of this class of fusion categories which arises from the extension of a Fibonacci category. We then classify slightly degenerate generalized near-group fusion categories. We also prove a structure result for braided generalized Tambara-Yamagami fusion categories.
We study exact sequences of finite tensor categories of the form $\Rep G \to \C \to \D$, where $G$ is a finite group. We show that, under suitable assumptions, there exists a group $Γ$ and mutual actions by permutations $\rhd: Γ\times G \to G$ and $\lhd: Γ\times G \to Γ$ that make $(G, Γ)$ into matched pair of groups endowed with a natural crossed action on $\D$ such that $\C$ is equivalent to a certain associated crossed extension $\D^{(G, Γ)}$ of $\D$. Dually, we show that an exact sequence of finite tensor categories $\vect_G \to \C \to \D$ induces an $\Aut(G)$-grading on $\C$ whose neutral…
Noncommutative near-group fusion categories were completely classified in the previous work of the first named author by using an operator algebraic method (and hence under the assumption of unitarity), and they were shown to be group theoretical though the corresponding pointed categories were not identified. In this note we give a purely algebraic construction of the noncommutative near-group fusion categories starting from pointed categories categorically Morita equivalent to them.
We prove a version of the Jordan-H\" older theorem in the context of weakly group-theoretical fusion categories. This allows us to introduce the composition factors and the length of such a fusion category C, which are in fact Morita invariants of C.
In this paper, we show that non-degenerate fusion categories of FP-dimensions $p^2q^3d$ and $p^3q^3d$ are group-theoretical, where $p, q$ are odd primes, $d$ is a square-free integer such that $(pq,d) = 1$.
We introduce two new classes of fusion categories which are obtained by a certain procedure from finite groups - weakly group-theoretical categories and solvable categories. These are fusion categories that are Morita equivalent to iterated extensions (in the world of fusion categories) of arbitrary, respectively solvable finite groups. Weakly group-theoretical categories have integer dimension, and all known fusion categories of integer dimension are weakly group theoretical. Our main results are that a weakly group-theoretical category C has the strong Frobenius property (i.e., the dimension…
A near-group category is an additively semisimple category with a product such that all but one of the simple objects is invertible. We classify braided structures on near-group categories, and give explicit numerical formulas for their associativity and commutativity morphisms.
We analyze the action of the Brauer-Picard group of a pointed fusion category on the set of Lagrangian subcategories of its center. Using this action we compute the Brauer-Picard groups of pointed fusion categories associated to several classical finite groups. As an application, we construct new examples of weakly group-theoretical fusion categories.
The semidirect product of a finitely generated group dual with the symmetric group can be described through so-called group-theoretical categories of partitions (covers only a special case; due to Raum--Weber, 2015) and skew categories of partitions (more general; due to Maassen, 2018). We generalize these results to the case of graph categories, which allows to replace the symmetric group by the group of automorphisms of some graph.
We classify certain categories of partitions of finite sets subject to specific rules on the colorization of points and the sizes of blocks. More precisely, we consider pair partitions such that each block contains exactly one white and one black point when rotated to one line; however crossings are allowed. There are two families of such categories, the first of which is indexed by cyclic groups and is covered in the present article; the second family will be the content of a follow-up article. Via a Tannaka-Krein result, the categories in the two families correspond to easy quantum groups in…
We study the construction of premonoidal categories, where the pentagon relation fails, through representations of finite group algebras and their quantum doubles. Both finite group algebras and their quantum doubles have a finite number of irreducible representations. We show that in each case there are at least $2^{n-1}$ inequivalent premonoidal categories of representations, where $n$ is the number of irreducible representations. By construction, for the case of finite group algebras the categories are symmetric whereas for the quantum doubles the categories are braided.
We prove that the Brauer-Picard group of Morita autoequiv- alences of each of the three fusion categories which arise as an even part of the Asaeda-Haagerup subfactor or of its index 2 extension is the Klein four-group. We describe the 36 bimodule categories which occur in the full subgroupoid of the Brauer-Picard groupoid on these three fusion categories. We also classify all irreducible subfactors both of whose even parts are among these categories, of which there are 111 up to isomorphism of the planar algebra (76 up to duality). Although we identify the entire Brauer-Picard group, there ma…
Classical and quantum Chern-Simons with gauge group $\text{U}(1)^N$ were classified by Belov and Moore in \cite{belov_moore}. They studied both ordinary topological quantum field theories as well as spin theories. On the other hand a correspondence is well known between ordinary $(2+1)$-dimensional TQFTs and modular tensor categories. We study group categories and extend them slightly to produce modular tensor categories that correspond to toral Chern-Simons. Group categories have been widely studied in other contexts in the literature \cite{frolich_kerler},\cite{quinn},\cite{joyal_street},\ci…
Given an action of a finite group G on a fusion category C we give a criterion for the category of G-equivariant objects in C to be group-theoretical, i.e., to be categorically Morita equivalent to a category of group-graded vector spaces. We use this criterion to answer affirmatively the question about existence of non group-theoretical semisimple Hopf algebras asked by P. Etingof, V. Ostrik, and the author in math/0203060. Namely, we show that certain Z/2Z-equivariantizations of fusion categories constructed by D. Tambara and S. Yamagami are equivalent to representation categories of non gro…
We classify various types of graded extensions of a finite braided tensor category $\cal B$ in terms of its $2$-categorical Picard groups. In particular, we prove that braided extensions of $\cal B$ by a finite group $A$ correspond to braided monoidal $2$-functors from $A$ to the braided $2$-categorical Picard group of $\cal B$ (consisting of invertible central $\cal B$-module categories). Such functors can be expressed in terms of the Eilnberg-Mac~Lane cohomology. We describe in detail braided $2$-categorical Picard groups of symmetric fusion categories and of pointed braided fusion categorie…
We show that the Witt class of a weakly group-theoretical non-degenerate braided fusion category belongs to the subgroup generated by classes of non-degenerate pointed braided fusion categories and Ising braided categories. This applies in particular to solvable non-degenerate braided fusion categories. We also give some sufficient conditions for a braided fusion category to be weakly group-theoretical or solvable in terms of the factorization of its Frobenius-Perron dimension and the Frobenius-Perron dimensions of its simple objects. As an application, we prove that every non-degenerate braid…
For an abelian group $ A $, we study a close connection between braided crossed $ A $-categories with a trivialization of the $ A $-action and $ A $-graded braided tensor categories. Additionally, we prove that the obstruction to the existence of a trivialization of a categorical group action $T$ on a monoidal category $\mathcal{C}$ is given by an element $O(T)\in H^2(G,\operatorname{Aut}_\otimes(\operatorname{Id}_{\mathcal{C}}))$. In the case that $O(T)=0$, the set of obstructions form a torsor over $\operatorname{Hom}(G,\operatorname{Aut}_\otimes(\operatorname{Id}_{\mathcal{C}}))$, where $\o…
We describe all fusion subcategories of the representation category of a twisted quantum double of a finite group. In view of the fact that every group-theoretical braided fusion category can be embedded into a representation category of a twisted quantum double of a finite group, this gives a complete description of all group-theoretical braided fusion categories. We describe the lattice and give formulas for some invariants of the fusion subcategories of representation category of a twisted quantum double of a finite group. We also give a characterization of group-theoretical braided fusion …
A Mackey type decomposition for group actions on abelian categories is described. This allows us to define new Mackey functors which associates to any subgroup the $K$-theory of the corresponding equivariantized abelian category. In the case of an action by tensor autoequivalences the Mackey functor at the level of Grothendieck rings has a Green functor structure. As an application we give a description of the Grothendieck rings of equivariantized fusion categories under group actions by tensor autoequivalences on graded fusion categories.
Modular tensor categories are generalizations of the representation categories of quantum groups at roots of unity axiomatizing the properties necessary to produce 3-dimensional TQFTs. Although other constructions have since been found, quantum groups remain the most prolific source. Recently proposed applications to quantum computing have provided an impetus to understand and describe these examples as explicitly as possible, especially those that are "physically feasible." We survey the current status of the problem of producing unitary modular tensor categories from quantum groups, emphasiz…
A group-category is an additively semisimple category with a monoidal product structure in which the simple objects are invertible. For example in the category of representations of a group, 1-dimensional representations are the invertible simple objects. This paper gives a detailed exploration of "topological quantum field theories" for group-categories, in hopes of finding clues to a better understanding of the general situation. Group-categories are classified in several ways extending results of Froelich and Kerler. Topological field theories based on homology and cohomology are constructe…
We calculate Frobenius-Schur indicator values for some fusion categories obtained from inclusions of finite groups $H\subset G$, where more concretely $G$ is symmetric or alternating, and $H$ is a symmetric, alternating or cyclic group. Our work is strongly related to earlier results by Kashina-Mason-Montgomery, Jedwab-Montgomery, and Timmer for bismash product Hopf algebras obtained from exact factorizations of groups. We can generalize some of their results, settle some open questions and offer shorter proofs; this already pertains to the Hopf algebra case, while our results also cover fusio…
Let $k$ be an algebraically closed field of characteristic $p\ge 0$. Let $G$ be an affine group scheme over $k$. We classify the indecomposable exact module categories over the rigid tensor category $\text{Coh}_f(G)$ of coherent sheaves of finite dimensional $k-$vector spaces on $G$, in terms of $(H,ψ)-$equivariant coherent sheaves on $G$. We deduce from it the classification of indecomposable {\em geometrical} module categories over $\Rep(G)$. When $G$ is finite, this yields the classification of {\em all} indecomposable exact module categories over the finite tensor category $\Rep(G)$. In pa…
We study actions of discrete groups on 2-categories. The motivating examples are actions on the 2-category of representations of finite tensor categories and their relation with the extension theory of tensor categories by groups. Associated to a group action on a 2-category, we construct the 2-category of equivariant objects. We also introduce the G-equivariant notions of pseudofunctor, pseudonatural transformation and modification. Our first main result is a coherence theorem for 2-categories with an action of a group. For a 2-category B with an action of a group G, we construct a braided G-…
We give a characterization of finite pointed tensor categories obtained as de-equivariantizations of finite-dimensional pointed Hopf algebras over abelian groups only in terms of the (cohomology class of the) associator of the pointed part. As an application we prove that every coradically graded pointed finite braided tensor category is a de-equivariantization of a finite dimensional pointed Hopf algebras over an abelian group.
Given a Hopf algebra $A$ graded by a discrete group together with an action of the same group preserving the grading, we define a new Hopf algebra, which we call the graded twisting of $A$. If the action is adjoint, this new Hopf algebra is a twist of $A$ by a pseudo-$2$-cocycle. Analogous construction can be carried out for monoidal categories. As examples we consider graded twistings of the Hopf algebras of nondegenerate bilinear forms, their free products, hyperoctahedral quantum groups and $q$-deformations of compact semisimple Lie groups. As applications, we show that the analogues of the…
The loop braid group is the motion group of unknotted oriented circles in $\mathbb{R}^3$. In this paper, we study their representations through the approach inspired by two dimensional topological phases of matter. In principle, the motion of loops in $\mathbb{R}^3$ reduces to the motions of points in a two dimensional sliced plane. We realize this physical picture in terms of braided tensor categories and their braid group representations.
We consider a subclass of the class of group-theoretical fusion categories: To every finite group $G$ and subgroup $H$ one can associate the category of $G$-graded vector spaces with a two-sided $H$-action compatible with the grading. We derive a formula that computes higher Frobenius-Schur indicators for the objects in such a category using the combinatorics and representation theory of the groups involved in their construction. We calculate some explicit examples for inclusions of symmetric groups.
A near-group fusion category is a fusion category C where all but 1 simple objects are invertible. Examples of these include the Tambara-Yamagami categories and the even sectors of the E6 and affine-D5 subfactors, though there are infinitely many others. We classify the near-group fusion categories, and compute their doubles and the modular data relevant to conformal field theory. Among other things, we explicitly construct over 40 new finite depth subfactors, with Jones index ranging from around 6.85 to around 14.93. We expect all of these doubles to be realised by rational conformal field th…
A quantum groups of type $A$ is defined in terms of a Hecke symmetry. We show in this paper that the representation category of such a quantum group is uniquely determined as an abelian braided monoidal category by the bi-rank of the Hecke symmetry.
