2-Group Symmetries of 3-dimensional Defect TQFTs and Their Gauging
Abstract
A large class of symmetries of topological quantum field theories is naturally described by functors into higher categories of topological defects. Here we study 2-group symmetries of 3-dimensional TQFTs. We explain that these symmetries can be gauged to produce new TQFTs iff certain defects satisfy the axioms of orbifold data. In the special case of Reshetikhin-Turaev theories coming from -crossed braided fusion categories , we show that there are 0- and 1-form symmetries which have no obstructions to gauging. We prove that gauging the 0-form -symmetry on the neutral component of produces its equivariantisation , which in turn features a generalised symmetry whose gauging recovers . If is commutative, the latter symmetry reduces to a 1-form symmetry involving the Pontryagin dual group.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2506.08178,
title = {2-Group Symmetries of 3-dimensional Defect TQFTs and Their Gauging},
author = {Nils Carqueville and Benjamin Haake},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.08178},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
63 pages