We associate to a braided 2-stack ${\cal C}$ a torsor, endowed with a symmetric cube structure (or $Σ$-structure), whose triviality is equivalent to the existence on ${\cal C}$ of a fully symmetric monoidal structure. In order to perform the analogous construction for braided 4-stacks, it is necessary to introduce the notion of a $Γ_3$-torsor pair, which is in the same relation to cubic forms as torsors with $Σ$-structure are to quadratic ones.
We show that the author's notion of Galois extensions of braided tensor categories [22], see also [3], gives rise to braided crossed G-categories, recently introduced for the purposes of 3-manifold topology [31]. The Galois extensions C \rtimes S are studied in detail, and we determine for which g in G non-trivial objects of grade g exist in C \rtimes S.
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…
Are introduced six examples of non-braidable tensor categories which are extensions of the category Comod(H), for H a super-group algebra; and two examples of braided categories where the only possible braiding is the trivial braiding.
A braided $Ann$-category $\mathcal A$ is an $Ann$-category $\mathcal A$ together with a braiding $c$ such that $(\mathcal A, \otimes, a, c, (1,l,r))$ is a braided tensor category, moreover $c$ is compatible with the distributivity constraints. According to the structure transport theorem, the paper shows that each braided $Ann$-category is equivalent to a braided $Ann$-category of the type $(R,M)$, hence the proof of the classification theorem for braided $Ann$-categories by the cohomology of commutative rings is presented.
We show that the word problem for braided monoidal categories is at least as hard as the unknotting problem. As a corollary, so is the word problem for Gray categories. We conjecture that the word problem for Gray categories is decidable.
We study some examples of braided categories and quasitriangular Hopf algebras and decide which of them is pseudosymmetric, respectively pseudotriangular. We show also that there exists a universal pseudosymmetric braided category.
Braided-enriched monoidal categories were introduced in work of Morrison-Penneys, where they were characterized using braided central functors. Recent work of Kong-Yuan-Zhang-Zheng and Dell extended this characterization to an equivalence of 2-categories. Since their introduction, braided-enriched fusion categories have been used to describe certain phenomena in topologically ordered systems in theoretical condensed matter physics. While these systems are unitary, there was previously no general notion of unitarity for enriched categories in the literature. We supply the notion of unitarity fo…
We provide explicit and unified formulae for the normalized 3-cocycles on arbitrary finite abelian groups. As an application, we compute all the braided monoidal structures on linear Gr-categories.
We show that the homotopy colimit construction for diagrams of categories with an operad action, recently introduced by Fiedorowicz, Stelzer and Vogt, has the desired homotopy type for diagrams of weak braided monoidal categories. This provides a more flexible way to realize E-2 spaces categorically.
Thomason's Homotopy Colimit Theorem has been extended to bicategories and this extension can be adapted, through the delooping principle, to a corresponding theorem for diagrams of monoidal categories. In this version, we show that the homotopy type of the diagram can be also represented by a genuine simplicial set nerve associated with it. This suggests the study of a homotopy colimit theorem, for diagrams $\b$ of braided monoidal categories, by means of a simplicial set {\em nerve of the diagram}. We prove that it is weak homotopy equivalent to the homotopy colimit of the diagram, of simplic…
Multiplier bimonoids (or bialgebras) in arbitrary braided monoidal categories are defined. They are shown to possess monoidal categories of comodules and modules. These facts are explained by the structures carried by their induced functors.
We develop the theory of weak bimonoids in braided monoidal categories and show them to be quantum categories in a certain sense. Weak Hopf monoids are shown to be quantum groupoids. Each separable Frobenius monoid R leads to a weak Hopf monoid R \otimes R.
We study the question of dualizability in higher Morita categories of locally presentable tensor categories and braided tensor categories. Our main results are that the 3-category of rigid tensor categories with enough compact projectives is 2-dualizable, that the 4-category of rigid braided tensor categories with enough compact projectives is 3-dualizable, and that (in characteristic zero) the 4-category of braided fusion categories is 4-dualizable. Via the cobordism hypothesis, this produces respectively 2, 3 and 4-dimensional framed local topological field theories. In particular, we produc…
In this paper, we state and prove precise theorems on the classification of the category of (braided) categorical groups and their (braided) monoidal functors, and some applications obtained from the basic studies on monoidal functors between categorical groups.
We give a formula for the relative Deligne tensor product of two indecomposable finite semisimple module categories over a pointed braided fusion category over an algebraically closed field.
We introduce, for a symmetric fusion category $\mathcal{A}$ with Drinfeld centre $\mathcal{Z}(\mathcal{A})$, the notion of $\mathcal{Z}(\mathcal{A})$-crossed braided tensor category. These are categories that are enriched over $\mathcal{Z}(\mathcal{A})$ equipped with a symmetric tensor product, while being braided monoidal with respect to the usual tensor product on $\mathcal{Z}(\mathcal{A})$. In the Tannakian case where $\mathcal{A}=\mathbf{Rep}(G)$ for a finite group $G$, the 2-category of $\mathcal{Z}(\mathcal{A})$-crossed braided categories is shown to be equivalent to the 2-category of $G…
We construct an equivalence between the 2-categories VMonCat of rigid V-monoidal categories for a braided monoidal category V and VModTens of oplax braided functors from V into the Drinfeld centers of ordinary rigid monoidal categories. The 1-cells in each are the respective lax monoidal functors, and the 2-cells are the respective monoidal natural transformations. Our proof also gives an equivalence in the case that we consider only strong monoidal 1-cells on both sides. The 2-categories VMonCat and VModTens have G-graded analogues. We also get an equivalence of 2-categories between G-extensi…
We describe a class of examples of braided monoidal categories which are built from Hopf algebras in symmetric categories. The construction is motivated by a calculation in two-dimensional conformal field theory and is tailored to contain the braided monoidal categories occurring in the study of the Ising model, their generalisation to Tamabara-Yamagami categories, and categories occurring for symplectic fermions.
Ocneanu rigidity implies that there are finitely many (braided) fusion categories with a given set of fusion rules. While there is no method for determining all such categories up to equivalence, there are a few cases for which can. For example, Kazhdan and Wenzl described all fusion categories with fusion rules isomorphic to those of $SU(N)_k$. In this paper we extend their results to a statement about braided fusion categories, and obtain similar results for certain subcategories of $SU(N)_k$.
We introduce the notion of a monoidal category enriched in a braided monoidal category $\mathcal V$. We set up the basic theory, and prove a classification result in terms of braided oplax monoidal functors to the Drinfeld center of some monoidal category $\mathcal T$. Even the basic theory is interesting; it shares many characteristics with the theory of monoidal categories enriched in a symmetric monoidal category, but lacks some features. Of particular note, there is no cartesian product of braided-enriched categories, and the natural transformations do not form a 2-category, but rather sat…
We introduce the notion of a braiding on a skew monoidal category, whose curious feature is that the defining isomorphisms involve three objects rather than two. These braidings are shown to arise from, and classify, cobraidings (also known as coquasitriangular structures) on bialgebras. Using a multicategorical approach we also describe examples of braidings on skew monoidal categories arising from 2-category theory.
Monoidal categories enriched in a braided monoidal category $\mathcal{V}$ are classified by braided oplax monoidal functors from $\mathcal{V}$ to the Drinfeld centers of ordinary monoidal categories. In this article, we prove that this classifying functor is strongly monoidal if and only if the original $\mathcal{V}$-monoidal category is tensored over $\mathcal{V}$. We then define a completion operation which produces a tensored $\mathcal{V}$-monoidal category $\overline{\mathcal{C}}$ from an arbitrary $\mathcal{V}$-monoidal category $\mathcal{C}$, and we determine many equivalent conditions w…
We give an alternative presentation of braided monoidal categories. Instead of the usual associativity and braiding we have just one constraint (the b-structure). In the unital case, the coherence conditions for a b-structure are shown to be equivalent to the usual associativity, unit and braiding axioms. We also discuss the next dimensional version, that is, b-structures on bicategories. As an application, we show how special b-categories result in the Yang-Baxter equation, and how special b-bicategories produce Zamolodchikov's tetrahedron equation. Finally, we define a cohomology theory (the…
In this paper we study the categories of braided categorical associative algebras and braided crossed modules of associative algebras and we relate these structures with the categories of braided categorical Lie algebras and braided crossed modules of Lie algebras.
We study semi-strict tricategories in which the only weakness is in vertical composition. We construct these as categories enriched in the category of bicategories with strict functors, with respect to the cartesian monoidal structure. As these are a form of tricategory it follows that doubly-degenerate ones are braided monoidal categories. We show that this form of semi-strict tricategory is weak enough to produce all braided monoidal categories. That is, given any braided monoidal category $B$ there is a doubly-degenerate ``vertically weak'' semi-strict tricategory whose associated braided m…
We discuss what has been achieved in the past twenty years on the construction and study of a braided finite tensor category structure on a suitable module category for a suitable vertex operator algebra. We identify the main difficult parts in the construction, discuss the methods developed to overcome these difficulties and present some further problems that still need to be solved. We also choose to discuss three among the numerous applications of the construction.
Tannaka Duality describes the relationship between algebraic objects in a given category and their representations; an important case is that of Hopf algebras and their categories of representations; these have strong monoidal forgetful "fibre functors" to the category of vector spaces. We simultaneously generalize the theory of Tannaka duality in two ways: first, we replace Hopf algebras with weak Hopf algebras and strong monoidal functors with separable Frobenius monoidal functors; second, we replace the category of vector spaces with an arbitrary braided monoidal category. To accomplish thi…
This is the first paper in a series where we generalize the Categorical Quantum Mechanics program (due to Abramsky, Coecke, et al) to braided systems. In our view a uniform description of quantum information for braided systems has not yet emerged. The picture is complicated by a diversity of examples that lacks a unifying framework for proving theorems and discovering new protocols. We use category theory to construct a high-level language that abstracts the quantum mechanical properties of braided systems. We exploit this framework to propose an axiomatic description of braided quantum infor…
For a braided fusion category $\mathcal{V}$, a $\mathcal{V}$-fusion category is a fusion category $\mathcal{C}$ equipped with a braided monoidal functor $\mathcal{F}:\mathcal{V} \to Z(\mathcal{C})$. Given a fixed $\mathcal{V}$-fusion category $(\mathcal{C}, \mathcal{F})$ and a fixed $G$-graded extension $\mathcal{C}\subseteq \mathcal{D}$ as an ordinary fusion category, we characterize the enrichments $\widetilde{\mathcal{F}}:\mathcal{V} \to Z(\mathcal{D})$ of $\mathcal{D}$ which are compatible with the enrichment of $\mathcal{C}$. We show that G-crossed extensions of a braided fusion category …
This short note reports on joint work with Michael Batanin towards a general machine for proving Baez-Dolan Stabilization Theorems for various models of higher categories, based on substitudes, Bousfield localization, and homotopical Beck-Chevalley squares. I provide a road map to our recent papers, and include new results proving Baez-Dolan Stabilization Theorems for Tamsamani weak $n$-categories, higher Segal categories, Ara's $n$-quasi-categories, and cartesian models of Segal and complete Segal objects due to Bergner and Rezk. I also attempt to clarify the connection to higher braided oper…
Braided bialgebras of type one in abelian braided monoidal categories are characterized as braided graded bialgebras which are strongly $\mathbb{N}$-graded both as an algebra and as a coalgebra.
We generalize Jones' planar algebras by internalising the notion to a pivotal braided tensor category $\mathcal{C}$. To formulate the notion, the planar tangles are now equipped with additional `anchor lines' which connect the inner circles to the outer circle. We call the resulting notion an anchored planar algebra. If we restrict to the case when $\mathcal{C}$ is the category of vector spaces, then we recover the usual notion of a planar algebra. Building on our previous work on categorified traces, we prove that there is an equivalence of categories between anchored planar algebras in $\mat…
We describe (braided-)commutative algebras with non-degenerate multiplicative form in certain braided monoidal categories, corresponding to abelian metric Lie algebras (so-called Drinfeld categories). We also describe local modules over these algebras and classify commutative algebras with finite number of simple local modules.
This work contributes to clarifying several relationships between certain higher categorical structures and the homotopy type of their classifying spaces. Bicategories (in particular monoidal categories) have well understood simple geometric realizations, and we here deal with homotopy types represented by lax diagrams of bicategories, that is, lax functors to the tricategory of bicategories. In this paper, it is proven that, when a certain bicategorical Grothendieck construction is performed on a lax diagram of bicategories, then the classifying space of the resulting bicategory can be though…
We want to establish the "braided action" (defined in the paper) of the DHR category on a universal environment algebra as a complete invariant for completely rational chiral conformal quantum field theories. The environment algebra can either be a single local algebra, or the quasilocal algebra, both of which are model-independent up to isomorphism. The DHR category as an abstract structure is captured by finitely many data (superselection sectors, fusion, and braiding), whereas its braided action encodes the full dynamical information that distinguishes models with isomorphic DHR categories.…
Let $\mathfrak u$ be a compact semisimple Lie algebra, and $σ$ be a Lie algebra involution of $\mathfrak u$. Let Rep$_q(\mathfrak u)$ be the ribbon braided tensor C*-category of $U_q(\mathfrak u)$-representations for $0<q<1$. We introduce three module C*-categories over Rep$_q(\mathfrak u)$ starting from the input data $(\mathfrak u,σ)$. The first construction is based on the theory of cyclotomic KZ-equations. The second construction uses the notion of quantum symmetric pair as developed by G. Letzter. The third construction uses a variation of Drinfeld twisting. In all three cases the module …
We associate to each Temperley-Lieb-Jones C*-tensor category $\mathcal{T}\!\mathcal{L}\mathcal{J}(δ)$ with parameter $δ$ in the discrete range $\{2\cos(π/(k+2))\,:\,k=1,2,\ldots\}\cup\{2\}$ a certain C*-algebra $\mathcal{B}$ of compact operators. We use the unitary braiding on $\mathcal{T}\!\mathcal{L}\mathcal{J}(δ)$ to equip the category $\mathrm{Mod}_{\mathcal{B}}$ of (right) Hilbert $\mathcal{B}$-modules with the structure of a braided C*-tensor category. We show that $\mathcal{T}\!\mathcal{L}\mathcal{J}(δ)$ is equivalent, as a braided C*-tensor category, to the full subcategory $\mathrm{Mo…
The centre of a monoidal category is a braided monoidal category. Monoidal categories are monoidal objects (or pseudomonoids) in the monoidal bicategory of categories. This paper provides a universal construction in a braided monoidal bicategory that produces a braided monoidal object from any monoidal object. Some properties and sufficient conditions for existence of the construction are examined.
The theories of (Hopf) bialgebras and weak (Hopf) bialgebras have been introduced for vector space categories over fields and make heavily use of the tensor product. As first generalisations, these notions were formulated for monoidal categories, with braidings if needed. The present authors developed a theory of bimonads and Hopf monads $H$ on arbitrary categories $\mathbb{A}$, employing distributive laws, allowing for a general form of the Fundamental Theorem for Hopf algebras. For $τ$-bimonads $H$, properties of braided (Hopf) bialgebras were captured by requiring a Yang-Baxter operator $τ:…
We show that any slightly degenerate weakly group-theoretical fusion category admits a minimal non-degenerate extension. Let $d$ be a positive square-free integer, given a weakly group-theoretical non-degenerate fusion category $\mathcal{C}$, assume that $\text{FPdim}(\mathcal{C})=nd$ and $(n,d)=1$. If $(\text{FPdim}(X)^2,d)=1$ for all simple objects $X$ of $\mathcal{C}$, then we show that $\mathcal{C}$ contains a non-degenerate fusion subcategory $\mathcal{C}(\mathbb{Z}_d,q)$. In particular, we obtain that integral fusion categories of FP-dimensions $p^md$ such that $\mathcal{C}'\subseteq \te…
We collate information about the fusion categories with $A_n$ fusion rules. This note includes the classification of these categories, a realisation via the Temperley-Lieb categories, the auto-equivalence groups (both braided and tensor), identifications of the subcategories of invertible objects, and explicit descriptions of the Drinfeld centres. The first section describes the classification of these categories (as monoidal, dagger, pivotal, and braided categories). The second section describes the properties of these categories.
We introduce a new type of categorical object called a \emph{hom-tensor category} and show that it provides the appropriate setting for modules over an arbitrary hom-bialgebra. Next we introduce the notion of \emph{hom-braided category} and show that this is the right setting for modules over quasitriangular hom-bialgebras. We also show how the hom-Yang-Baxter equation fits into this framework and how the category of Yetter-Drinfeld modules over a hom-bialgebra with bijective structure map can be organized as a hom-braided category. Finally we prove that, under certain conditions, one can obta…
Presentations for unbraided, braided and symmetric pseudomonoids are defined. Biequivalences characterising the semistrict bicategories generated by these presentations are proven. It is shown that these biequivalences categorify results in the theory of monoids and commutative monoids, and generalise standard coherence theorems for braided and symmetric monoidal categories.
We develop the Witt group for certain braided monoidal categories with duality. In case of a braided fusion category over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, we explicitly describe this structure. We then use this description to prove that this tool provides an invariant for finite isocategorical groups. As an application, we show that all groups of order less than 64 are categorically rigid.
We show that a quantum field theory A living on the line and having a group G of inner symmetries gives rise to a category GLoc A of twisted representations. This category is a braided crossed G-category in the sense of Turaev. Its degree zero subcategory is braided and equivalent to the usual representation category Rep A. Combining this with [29], where Rep A was proven to be modular for a nice class of rational conformal models, and with the construction of invariants of G-manifolds in [60], we obtain an equivariant version of the following chain of constructions: Rational CFT -> modular ca…
We classify braided tensor categories over C of exponential growth which are quasisymmetric, i.e., the squared braiding is the identity on the product of any two simple objects. This generalizes the classification results of Deligne on symmetric categories of exponential growth, and of Drinfeld on quasitriangular quasi-Hopf algebras. In particular, we classify braided categories of exponential growth which are unipotent, i.e., those whose only simple object is the unit object. We also classify fiber functors on such categories. Finally, using the Etingof-Kazhdan quantization theory of Poisson …
For a braided finite tensor category $\mathcal{C}$ with unit object $1 \in \mathcal{C}$, Lyubashenko considered a certain Hopf algebra $\mathbb{F} \in \mathcal{C}$ endowed with a Hopf pairing $ω: \mathbb{F} \otimes \mathbb{F} \to 1$ to define the notion of a `non-semisimple' modular tensor category. We say that $\mathcal{C}$ is non-degenerate if the Hopf pairing $ω$ is non-degenerate. In this paper, we show that $\mathcal{C}$ is non-degenerate if and only if it is factorizable in the sense of Etingof, Nikshych and Ostrik, if and only if its Müger center is trivial, if and only if the linear ma…
