Alexandria Digital Research Library

Higher categories and topological quantum field theories

Author:
Cui, Xingshan
Degree Grantor:
University of California, Santa Barbara. Mathematics
Degree Supervisor:
Zhenghan Wang
Place of Publication:
[Santa Barbara, Calif.]
Publisher:
University of California, Santa Barbara
Creation Date:
2016
Issued Date:
2016
Topics:
Mathematics
Keywords:
Topological quantum field theory
Invariants
Higher category
Genres:
Online resources and Dissertations, Academic
Dissertation:
Ph.D.--University of California, Santa Barbara, 2016
Description:

We give a construction of Turaev-Viro type (3+1)-TQFT out of a G-crossed braided spherical fusion category for G a finite group. The resulting invariant of 4-manifolds generalizes several known invariants in literature such as the Crane-Yetter invariant and Yetter's invariant from homotopy 2-types. Some concrete examples will be provided to show the calculations. If the category is concentrated only at the sector indexed by the trivial group element, a co-cycle in H 4(G,U(1)) can be introduced to produce another invariant, which reduces to the twisted Dijkgraaf-Witten theory in a special case. It can be shown that with a G-crossed braided spherical fusion category, one can construct a monoidal 2-category with certain extra structure, but these structures do not satisfy all the axioms of a spherical 2-category given by M. Mackaay. Although not proven, it is believed that our invariant is strictly different from other known invariants. It remains to see if the invariant has the power to detect any smooth structures.

Physical Description:
1 online resource (105 pages)
Format:
Text
Collection(s):
UCSB electronic theses and dissertations
ARK:
ark:/48907/f3s75gdd
ISBN:
9781369147247
Catalog System Number:
990046968220203776
Rights:
Inc.icon only.dark In Copyright
Copyright Holder:
Xingshan Cui
File Description
Access: Public access
Cui_ucsb_0035D_13074.pdf pdf (Portable Document Format)