English

2-Group Symmetries of 3-dimensional Defect TQFTs and Their Gauging

Quantum Algebra 2026-05-20 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory Mathematical Physics math.MP

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 GG-crossed braided fusion categories CG×\mathcal C^\times_G, we show that there are 0- and 1-form symmetries which have no obstructions to gauging. We prove that gauging the 0-form GG-symmetry on the neutral component Ce\mathcal C_e of CG×\mathcal C^\times_G produces its equivariantisation (CG×)G(\mathcal C^\times_G)^G, which in turn features a generalised symmetry whose gauging recovers Ce\mathcal C_e. If GG is commutative, the latter symmetry reduces to a 1-form symmetry involving the Pontryagin dual group.

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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}
}

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63 pages