Average Categorical Symmetries in One-Dimensional Disordered Systems
Abstract
We study one-dimensional disordered systems with average non-invertible symmetries, where quenched disorder may locally break part of the symmetry while preserving it upon disorder averaging. A canonical example is the random transverse-field Ising model, which at criticality exhibits an average Kramers-Wannier duality. We consider the general setting in which the full symmetry is described by a -graded fusion category , whose identity component remains exact, while the components with nontrivial -grading are realized either exactly or only on average. We develop a topological holographic framework that encodes the symmetry data of the 1D system in a 2D topological order (the Drinfeld center of ), enriched by an exact or, respectively, average symmetry. Within this framework, we obtain a complete classification of anomalies and average symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases: when the components with nontrivial -grading are realized only on average, the symmetry is anomaly-free if and only if admits a magnetic Lagrangian algebra that is invariant under the permutation action of on anyons. When an anomaly is present, we show that the ground state of a single disorder realization is long-range entangled with probability one in the thermodynamic limit, and is expected to exhibit power-law Griffiths singularities in the low-energy spectrum. Finally, we present an explicit, exactly solvable lattice model based on a symmetry-enriched string-net construction. It yields trivial ground state ensemble in the anomaly-free case, and exhibits exotic low-energy behavior in the presence of an average anomaly.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2602.09083,
title = {Average Categorical Symmetries in One-Dimensional Disordered Systems},
author = {Yabo Li and Meng Cheng and Ruochen Ma},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.09083},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
29+5 pages, 7 figures