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A Complexity Dichotomy for Quantum Invariants of 3-Manifolds

Quantum Algebra 2026-05-11 v1

Abstract

We prove exact complexity dichotomies for two quantum invariants of closed oriented three-manifolds, with the categorical data fixed. For a modular category C\mathcal{C}, computing the Reshetikhin--Turaev invariant ZC(M)Z_{\mathcal{C}}(M) from a framed-link surgery presentation is in FP\mathrm{FP} exactly when C\mathcal{C} is pointed, that is, when all simple objects are invertible under tensor product; otherwise it is #P\#\mathrm{P}-hard. For a spherical fusion category A\mathcal{A}, computing the Turaev--Viro invariant MA|M|_{\mathcal{A}} from a triangulation, equivalently from a skeleton, is in FP\mathrm{FP} exactly when its Drinfeld center Z(A)\mathcal{Z}(\mathcal{A}) is pointed, equivalently when A\mathcal{A} is trivializable pointed; otherwise it is #P\#\mathrm{P}-hard. The polynomial-time cases reduce to finite abelian linear algebra and Gauss sums. The reductions are based on a genus-one graph-manifold family MGM_G, indexed by graphs GG. In the anomaly-free case, the core calculation expresses ZC(MG)Z_{\mathcal{C}}(M_G) as the weighted graph homomorphism partition function with matrix AC(i,j)=Si,j/(didj)A_{\mathcal{C}}(i,j)=S_{i,j^*}/(d_i d_j), where SS is the modular matrix, did_i is the quantum dimension of ii, and jj^* is the dual label. Combining this formula with the Cai--Govorov dichotomy gives the hard side; the remaining Reshetikhin--Turaev and Turaev--Viro cases then follow by passing to Drinfeld centers.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.06984,
  title  = {A Complexity Dichotomy for Quantum Invariants of 3-Manifolds},
  author = {Cśar Galindo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.06984},
  year   = {2026}
}

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36 pages